After having used my SIEG C3 mini lathe for a while, I started to follow the upgrade/attachement series in the Model Engineers Workshop mag. A really nice series which I believe became a book a little later on.
Starting out with the simpler trimmings and adjustments, I soon came to the point to start making new bits and pieces. A headstock dividing atachement was one of the first and for the next parts necessary attachment. Having studied the MEW article on this for some days, I decided to make one, but with a few mods of course
The way the described attachment was designed it would be a little fiddly to attach I thought, mostly due to the number of items to assemble. So a simpler way of holding the detent should be made. My choice became a console made from a piece of sturdy angle iron bar in the range of 60x60x5 mm or so held by two thumb screws in the existing cover holes. (In reality, my piece came out of a 120x120x12 T-bar
). Some chain drilling and hacksawing later I had a nice chunk to smoothen in my mini-mill.
The gear holder was made according to the drawings apart from that I made the securing nut into a large thumb screw to allow thumping it loose with the palm of my hand. I also made a small T-shaped key to really fix the gear position as it turned out that the gear could slip even if it was a stiff sliding fit to the arbor.
The detent arrangement was made using ideqas out of the GH Thomas' book Workshop Techniques in which the dividing appliances were described. It was also a good way to make the detent as all the parts were turned. To make it possible to run the lathe even with the detent mounted, I made a hold-out clip that is held in palce by countersinks that fit the knob and the body.
These are the bits:
From top left - the console, the detent and the hold-out. Next row shows the gear and arbor, and the two attachement thumb screws.
If we turn the console to show the back, there is a milled out recess to make room for the upper left screw holding the back plate of the headstock bearings.
Assembly is as follows:
1 - Attach the console with the two thumb screws.
2 - Attach the gear to the spindle.
3 - Attach the detent to the console.
4 - Insert the hold-out so that the spindle can be set for the first mark.
This turned in to an easily attached/removed device which still is really rigid.
Now it is off and away to the next project.
BR
/Peter
