Indexing

[Ron LaDow]

Listers,
Being self-taught, there's a whole lot I don't know. So if some of the questions I post cause laughter, at least you can enjoy that.
I'm considering a rotary table for my mill and am wondering if this will serve as an 'indexing' tool also.
Thanks in advance...

[doug]

Indexing is usually done with a "plate" in
the back. It's used for quick location. Were
as a rotary table is used for odd locations.
A rotary table can also do "indexing". The
rotary table has a handle to crank. Indexing
is pulling a lever and rotating till a pin falls into place. Buy the rotary table.

doug

[Ron LaDow]

Doug,
Thanks.
Ron LaDow

[SGW]

Sure, you can index with a rotary table. It gets a little tedious because you need to figure out the angular value for each index position which, if you're doing a 48-tooth gear or something, can get extensive. But you can do it with a computer program pretty easily these days, so it's really not that big a deal.
There may even be tables in Machinery's Handbook with it all figured out, I'm not sure.

Unless you have a horizontal/vertical rotary table, you may not be able to set up the work on the axis you really want, but even that problem may be solvable with a big angle plate.

[artificer in metal]

Very definitely there are tables in the Machinery's Handbook for indexing check in the section 'Milling machining indexing'. Probably more information than you want to know on indexing. I would suggest getting a copy of an older edition of the Machinery's Handbook because there is more info that is useful for a tinkerer than in the newer ones - IMHO!