That link throws up a warning about a Trojan on my PC.

Brian

Interesting. 12 sides so it can replace both 4 and 6 sided blocks.

However narrower sides mean that you'd need fairly tall vice jaws to hold it properly. Would the common Vertex style and Kurt acculock knock-offs be deep enough?

Although I have had both 4 and 6 sided 5C blocks for many years they rarely get used due to the faff involved in setting them back into exactly the same longitudinal position after each part turn shift. Close is pretty easy but avoiding that annoying 1 to 10 thou step left when you don't quite get it right is another matter.

So I usually reach for the spindexer. The blocks tend to be reserved for when the degree disk gets in the way, Pity you can't easily reverse the spindle.

As the ER collet is front locking it would seem relatively easy to make an indexing horizontal / vertical carrier along the lines of those supplied for 5C collets. In principle the indexer could go where that incredibly irritating pin in hole draw up closure nut goes on the 5C type. In practical something designed from scratch would be more elegant.

A H/V ER collet carrier device like that would cover almost all of my spindexer and collet block work with the added advantage of easy vertical mounting. Just have to break out the dividing head or rotary table a bit more often for the few times when 12 positions wasn't enough but perm another number from 360 would have been.

Clive

Edited By Clive Foster on 02/11/2020 18:22:31

Edited By Clive Foster on 02/11/2020 18:22:52

Well worth dismantling old computer hard drives as a means of deleting the data.
They yield a couple of powerful curved magnets, which can sometimes get in better than straight ones.
The platters also make reasonable surface coated mirrors, rather than looking through the glass at an angle on conventional mirrors.
Bill

I don't have any collet blocks but I have heard it said that a hex block can be clamped on the flats or the corners to give 90° increments.

Here is a pretty comprehensive video showing the spindexer mod: **LINK**

William.

I machined the bottom, sides and faces of my spin indexer quite soon after I got it and added thrust bearings as well. Didn't bother with the covers or o rings as I don't have a grinder that I use it on. I also didn't swap the ends round. Like Clive I have a 5C mount chuck to use with it as well. To do the first operation I set the bore up to the spindle axis and made sure the front face was square to the spindle rotation and machined the base using the front face as the datum. You can see one of the thrust bearings in this picture from 2017.

Martin C

Be careful when holding something that is short relative to the vise jaw width at one end of the jaws. Many types of vise will require an identical width block at the other end to stop their jaws tilting.

The trouble with buying from down under is that the postage can be even higher than from the USA.

Edited By old mart on 03/11/2020 20:00:31