Thread: Dividing Head Chuck

A four jaw...

An ER collet chuck is also very handy..

A four jaw can do the work of a three, but the reverse cannot be said. Id go the four too.

Another option is to make a spindle nose adapter for it so you can use the chucks off your 260. This also means you can turn something and then take it straight to the mill without removing it from the chuck and loosing concentricity.

Ew

Originally Posted by Ueee

Another option is to make a spindle nose adapter for it so you can use the chucks off your 260. This also means you can turn something and then take it straight to the mill without removing it from the chuck and loosing concentricity.

Ew

Ben will run out of room Ew. Hercus dividing heads are tiny, flimsy things. I tried not disturbing the work in my 5 inch chuck by leaving it in place and moving the chuck over to the DH from the lathe. Turned to syrup when the 2 horsepowered cutter found out that the DH tailstock wasn't tightened. The chuck Hercus supplied as an accessory for the dividing head was a piddly Burnerd scroll thingo. The thing you tighten with a couple of bars. More suited to the mill's 1/2 horsepower.

Bob.

Originally Posted by Anorak Bob

Mike will run out of room Ew. Hercus dividing heads are tiny, flimsy things. I tried not disturbing the work in my 5 inch chuck by leaving it in place and moving the chuck over to the DH from the lathe. Turned to syrup when the 2 horsepowered cutter found out that the DH tailstock wasn't tightened. The chuck Hercus supplied as an accessory for the dividing head was a piddly Burnerd scroll thingo. The thing you tighten with a couple of bars. More suited to the mill's 1/2 horsepower.

Bob.


edit . My 2 bob's worth on the 3, 4 jaw thing. I have a 4 inch four jaw that I have used a number of times on the lathe but never on the Hercus dividing head. I have an 80mm Griptru 3 Jaw that I've used on the lathe and on the Hercus mill but it's a pain in the ring piece to adjust. The other mill has a 3 jaw 4 inch chuck that fits that mill's dividing head. I would need to make a backing plate to enable one of my other 4 inch four jaws to fit that dividing head and that's a bit of a challenge.

Stuart once said that the best you could really hope for on a mill would be a thou tolerance. That's stuck with me and that's probably why I haven't got around to another backing plate.

Agree with Bob on this, a large chuck will be too restrictive
Please see my note today in the "E Bay Metalworking Stuff" section of this Forum.
regards
Bruce

Originally Posted by Ueee

Another option is to make a spindle nose adapter for it so you can use the chucks off your 260. This also means you can turn something and then take it straight to the mill without removing it from the chuck and loosing concentricity.

Ew

Another way to achieve chuck interchangeability might be to mount the new chuck on a 3 Morse arbor. The DH is bored 3, the 250, 4. An adaptor sleeve would facilitate the interchange. Hercus sold a 3 Morse arbor with a 1 3/4" threaded nose as an accessory ( part no. 5H1067 ) for the milling slide's indexing attachment. That arbor will fit the DH. If the dividing head's spindle nose is fitted with a nose protection ring, the ring can be used to eject the arbor. Gently.

I bought one of the 1 3/4 adaptors from Hercus and cut off the thread, rethreading it 1 1/2 x 8 to suit my chucks.

The downside of this suggestion is that the ability to hold long workpieces through the chuck and spindle bore is lost. The dividing head will also accommodate 3C collets. Bruce uses some import 3Cs and swears by them. They run out of puff at 1/2".

BT

Hi,

Thanks for the replies. I did forget to ask what size chuck. Tissuescars has a couple of 6 diam chucks but after Abratools post may be to big. I'll continue searching.

Thanks Ben.

Hi,

Quick Epay search;

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/380846632...84.m1438.l2649 Ozeseller or

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/171253273...84.m1438.l2649

Ben

Personally I would suggest for a first chuck that a 3 jaw would be better - the reason being that they are self centering. A 4 jaw would mean having to rotate the chuck a few times on the dividing head to get things trued up. A pain if you just want to do a quick cross drilled hole or two. It does not need to be big - 100mm or even 80mm would probably do
The other point is minor but a 3 jaw will hold round stock and hex stock where as the 4 jaw will do round and square stock. Is that a consideration?

Michael

Hello Ben,

In my reply to Ewan's post I called you Mike. Now, I did proof read that reply before I posted it and I could try to blame the red wine or my age or both but I can't. I made an mistake for which I am truly sorry.

Bob.

HI Bob,

No problems at all. You wouldn't believe how many times I pull out my dictionary to check my spelling. Or how many times I forget people's names.

Ben.

I'm going to have a look at a few of the local markets over the next couple of weeks to see what turns up chuck wise.

Thank you Ben.

I did post a bunch of photos last night of various chucks and how they would or would not fit the little Hercus, then deleted them for which I will blame the plonk.

Here they are again. The 6 inch light pattern 4 jaw Burnerd and their 5 inch 3, both supplied by Hercus for the nine inch lathe, won't fit because the base bracket casting gets in the way. The 4 x 4 fits nicely as would the little scroll chuck which is just perched on the nose for the purpose of the photo. I wouldn't go larger than a four inch chuck. I did mount my backplate fitted 5 inch TOS on the little head for some milling on the 13. Came unstuck because I had not tightened the tailstock and that setup needed tailstock support.

Hi,

Bought a Bernard chuck of epay, a little 4 incher. It's made for a Myford lathe, with a screw on thread. I was hoping to be able to put a backing plate on like this:

http://australianmetalworkinghobbyis...product_id=194

But I'm not so sure if I can do that now as there's no actual backing plate already on the chuck.

I think I still can, any suggestions?

Ben

If the thread in the chuck is an integral part of the chuck I wouldn't be trying to adapt another back-plate to it.

It could probably be done but a lot of work/mucking around may be.

You would in my opinion be better off making up an adapter socket.