Elliott dividing head

Dear All, I would be grateful if anyone could help me with some information regarding a 4 1/2 inch swing Elliott dividing head. I recently aquired one and it has turned out to be a little[!!] beauty when cleaned up. Like most of these its change gears ,quadrant , sector arms and washer have long since parted company. Luckily I have had lying in the work shop for years a full set of 1 inch gears [rising by fours ] which I suspect originally came from a dividing head.I have made a new handle and detent based on the one on my theil dividing head. I will base the sector arms likewise [unless I can find an original set somewhere]. I have the plates ready to drill and the steel for the Banjo. However i should like to know the centre distance of the 2 parallel slots on the original banjo and Ideally a source of the spring steel 'c washers'[dont know the correct term]. I have tried all the usual sources and second hand suppliers to no avail. Can anyone let me know the dimensions and a supplier,

Thanks in anticipation Ian

P.S have got a manual from ebay which applies to7, 8,10 and12 inch swing but no mention of 9 inch swing model

Ian, have a look at the forum on the homewokshop.org site for a post dated 23 jan. titled Elliott 3 1/2 dividing head. The repondent Peter turned out to have the full kit for a larger head, 4 or 5 inch so can give dimensions for scaling. I don't think the spacing between slots has a material effect unless you are trying to be authentic.

What size taper is in the nose MT4?
What is the C washer used for?
Does anyone know if the Elliott/Victoria style plate lock (a pin on the rear) was intended for compound indexing as I have only seen double sided plates mentioned in connection with a Cincinnati head? A few extra locking holes in a standard plate could add extra range with minimal effort.

I take it you know the standard set of gears listed for the tables in Machinery Handbook, B&S and Elliott data are 24,24,28,32,40,48,56,64,72,86,100 though a 60 is also used for 201 divisions. The 86 gear is ony used for the 106 train so of limitted value. Of course the ratios can mostly be produced with other gears too but it is amazing how they managed to work all the tables out to use the minimal set of gears before computers were invented.

If you are interested I have transferred the Victoria differential indexing tables into Excel for convenience.

> amazing how they managed to work all the tables out to use the minimal set of gears before computers were invented.

Given the accuracy with which past civilisations could predict eclipses and various astral phenomena with little more than sticks and clay, you have to wonder if humans were cleverer once...

Neil

Just noticed the typo in the first line of my post - unless JS has changed dierection of the site after his recent trip to China. (Ian there should be an R in front of the k if you are not familiar with the website in question)

It is actually not very hard to work out a setup for any desired division with a differential dividing head. I covered how to do it in the article I submitted about four years back on converting a Vertex BS0 head.

Dear Bazyle [and others],thank you for your replies.Sorry for delay in replying but only just had time to get in the workshop to check that the spindle was indeed 4mt.You know how it goes ,your sure it is 4mt but as soon as you state that it will turn out to be 41/2 mt. IT IS 4mt with the nose 2"x10tpi.The "c" spring clip I referred to is used to keep the sector arms in place on the spindle and add some downward thrust to stiffen.The set of gears I have is as you state, only has one 24T They are 14 DP,1 inch bore with a single keyway. The one original plate I obtained is 9 rows of holes with one hole in the other face for the locking pin which I took to be used for compound indexing.I have now registered with homeworkshop .org and are awaiting their approval.I would indeed be interested in the excel tables as have just bitten the bullet and set up computer and internet in shed! Thanks again for the info,

kind regards Ian

P.S. I think I might get time today to mark out the Quadrant.

Ian, please pm me your email address and I will send it to you. I tried uploading it to the site but it won't accept files even disguised as jpegs.

Bit outdated, but if you still have this file would you mind sending it to me pls. Just purchased a 4” centre height one and want to collect as much infos as possible. The ebay link is: **LINK**

in case you’d like to have a peak.

Thanks in advance,

Greg

Only some humans are clever, ordinary decent folk are baffled by maths and other sorceries! Right-thinking chaps know the best way to deal with swots, long-hairs, expurts, and intellectuals.

Presumably astronomers predicted astral events with the reliable solar calendar and then converted it into whatever system the rest of us were using?

In the west, the civil calendar was the Julian calendar (introduced in 46BC) until 1582 when replaced with the Gregorian calendar. Although the Julian calendar was nearly right, it made the year 365.25 days long, and accumulated an error of 1 day every 128 years.

After 1600 years, the difference between the calendar and the seasons was hard to ignore but being a ghastly foreign innovation, the Gregorian calendar was ignored by the British until 1752. (The old ways are the best.)

Even when the year starts has changed in Britain to bemuse the population. The Anglo-Saxon year started in September (after the equinox), then moved to the Winter Solstice (25th December), then 1 January (Catholic) , then 25th March (Equinox), finally back to 1 Jan in 1752. The UK government's Financial Year starts 1 April, a hangover from the spring equinox, useful because all the start-stop accounting doesn't land on a holiday.

Meanwhile, due to being retired and the Corona lock-down, I'm not sure what day it is any more!

Dave

I always thought the best thing he left us was his salad...

Edited By Mick B1 on 18/04/2020 11:24:52

Doh! Duplicate.

Edited By Mick B1 on 18/04/2020 11:21:19

Greg, You got that cheap, and with the tailstock is pretty lucky. You need to message me your regular email as the message system doesn't take excel files. I can drop you an email later when I wind up that computer.

SOD it is just as well we aren't following the old Greek system. The individual city states all ran their own calendar and changed month when they saw the new moon (or it might have been the full moon). Note the word "saw". If it was cloudy the month didn't change! So sometimes some of the cities could be a few days out of sync.

Another fun thing on dates and astronomy. They have calculated the slowing down of the earth's rotation over millennia to tiny fractions of a second using astronomical observations 5000 years ago. However the Sumarians who started the use of 60 seconds in a minute and sixty minutes in an hour 5 thousand years ago only recorded their sightings to the nearest 2 second interval which limits the accuracy How sloppy of them.

So we know where a particular planet was in 3000BC but I don't know what time I had lunch yesterday.

Guys just uploaded couple of pictures of the revival of this nice piece of kit. Please have a look at my album.

Also I will upload some footages as well after I finished editing. Youtube link will be provided...

I have to say I am pretty pleased with it.

https://www.model-engineer.co.uk/albums/member_album.asp?a=52943