The rotary table arrived the other day. Monday the dividing plates arrived.

The plates look great. The package was not so great. Amazon slapped a mailing label on the box and dropped it in the mail. It arrived with pieces missing.

There are supposed to be three screws and a handle/indexing plunger. These were missing.

But, that is ok, there is lots to do before the replacement parts arrive.

The rotary table needs one modification and one change. The worm shaft is keyed for the dial handle. Which is wonderful.

You can’t use a keyed shaft in the adjustment arm. The adjustment arm is a slot and a hole. The hole has a set screw to hold the handle at the right distance from the dividing plate. The slot fits over the worm shaft over two flats. It is held in place by a center screw. The same screw that holds the handle on.

The worm shaft is missing those flats. I will need to mill the flats in place to make it all work correctly.

The dividing plate mounts to a collar with three screws. The collar exists and is held to the elliptic housing with two set screws. The collar has the 0 index as well as a 10-second vernier scale. The collar does not have the three drilled and tapped holes to mount the dividing plates.

I’ve manufactured a replacement collar. I still need to drill and tap the holes for the set screws. Then I’ll drill and tape for the screws that are on the way to hold the dividing plate to the collar.

All good!

Making that collar was interesting. It is the first time I’ve used a sacrificial mandrel, and the first time I’ve used the superglue trick. That’s where you superglue the part to something you can hold on the lathe. When you are done, you heat the part and the superglue will release.

This worked much better than I expected.

I faced off both sides of an 8.0 by 1.25 disk of aluminum for the backing plate. I then made the registration boss. That boss is oversized. Once the backplate is mounted to the rotary table, which is centered, I can mill the registration boss to final dimension on the rotary table, this will maintain concentricity. I.e. the center of the rotary table will be the center of the chuck.

The plate needs to be drilled and counter sinks done to mount to the rotary table.

The rotary table does NOT have drilled and tapped holes. Instead, it has T-Slots. I am making the T-Nut blanks. They need to be cut apart, squared up, and then drilled and tapped 3/8 16. The T-Nut blanks have been tested, and they are a snug sliding fit into the T-Slots of the rotary table.

If I get lucky, I will finish making the backplate today. The only question I still have is the mounting holes for the chuck. I will hit up my local hardware store to buy the 3 screws I need to make it all work.

Hopefully, I will be cutting gears next week.

With the rotary table, some Casinator operations become easier. I’m excited about a productive week, working on the Casinator.