5C Spin Indexer Jig

[jamesemery728]

Can someone explain/demonstrate how these jigs are used. Held in a vise? Clamped to a mill table? Pictures would be great. Thanks to all in advance.

[Lew_Merrick_PE]

James,

My whirlygig (5C spin indexer) is packed away, but it is set up to be bolted to my table in standard fashion.  My unit can have the part move up to 2.750 inches axially -- which makes it good for holding endmills (and the like) during sharpening.  It also gives me reasonable accuracy for holding a part to mill or grind flats about a round part's periphery.  (If I need real accuracy, I use a more accurate rotary index table or a sine plate set-up.)  I don't use it much for that anymore as I have square, hex, and octo 5C holders that allow me to mount a part, hold it in my vise, and mill off various flats very quickly.  I made up an R8-based air-bearing system for sharpening endmills, so my whirlygig stays packed in it's box most of the time of late.

My whirlygig is a 1970 vintage unit.  It was made by Siewick Tool.  New it might have held 0°03' but I would not go bail on it holding closer than 0°06' now.  My 1950's vintage compound rotary table will resolve angles accurately to 0°00'15" so long as you rotate in a single direction.  Guess which one gets used more when I need angular accuracy?

The last time I pulled it out was to grind punches for a piercing die.  I set it up angled at .015/inch (0°51'34") to get back-taper on the sides of the punch after grinding the main body of the punch to size (ø.094 as I recall).

The real question is: What do you want to do with it?

[Bogstandard]

James,

They can do both of those if your vice is big enough.

What they are basically is what the name says, an indexer.

If you can divide 360 by a number and end up with a full number, so that is how many sides can be machined, or holes drilled or teeth cut etc, etc, around the circumference of a bar.

360÷12=30, so you can have 30 teeth on a gear, or even machine 30 flats on a bit of round bar, or in theory 360÷1=360 ......................

OR

If you need to drill holes at say 0, 37 and 193 degs around a circumference, then that can be done as well.

Basically, whatever you can think of for a use of full degree measurements around a circumference, then it can be done. The more you use your imagination, the more use you can get out of it.

This is a post I did about cutting the foot down to fit my vice and putting a t-slot bar along the bottom.

http://www.homemodelenginemachinist.com/index.php?topic=2681.0


Bogs