I have a 4" and it is quite big for the machine.

Personally I think a 6" would be overkill.

It does depend on what you intend doing with it though.

Regards clive

You can extend the smaller tables capacity by bolting on a disc or plate when required. I have a piece of flame cut and ground mild steel about 15"x8" that I bolt on to my 10" table as required this enables me to swing large radius. Lots of M10 tapped holes in the plate for fastening makes a useful addition and easy to store.

In many cases bigger is always better but there is a limit to how far you can go in terms of size if not cost. The solution as mentioned is to buy a size that suits your machine and make larger supplementary plates for it. They had a lovely 10" rotary table where I used to work but boy did it weigh a lot, not something you'd want to move very often. You can get low profile versions but I'm not sure how good they are. Vertex RT's seem good from the comments I've read. Let us know how you get on, pics would be nice!

A 6" rotary table is a good an SX3 mill so a 4" would probably be better for an SX2 but this will also depend on the size of parts which you intend to machine.

I needed to mill a bigger job and made a mounting plate to attach to the top of the RT to hold the part so I could face the outer edge of a 250mm plate. The teeth on the worm gears are small and the extra load on them stripped some of the teeth. A costly exercise. An 8" RT would have been a better option.

Paul.

On these small rotary tables the conventional T slotted top is a pain in the rectum for mounting components. Using standard style T nuts, studs, clap bar and stepped wedges takes up so much space that its hard to find room for the job. Odds are that you won't be able to complete a cut without moving a clamp too so you need more clamps to ensure the piece stays where it should when altering things. Making clamp sets is one of those jobs that takes a lot more work than you expect too as it has to be done half decent. Crude ones may work sort of but when they let go of a week or two work ruining things …..

Grid of holes top plates letting you use smaller screws, either directly or with more compact clamps work much better in these sizes. If you are going to make, or buy a suitable top plate then its easy enough to put a 5" or whatever on 4" base. In my view 8" diameter is the smallest table size on which the conventional clamp sets can be considered adequately useful. Even then often cramped, 10" is more the mark. Thor Labs do nice aluminium breadboards with grids of tapped holes that are well worth considering if you can't face making your own and have the funds. The anodised aluminium surface is hard and well up to Model Engineering use. I have so used them myself. Three types :- 1/2" thick with 1/4" x 20 or M6 holes on a square 1" or 25 mm grid, 1/2" thick double density in both circular and rectangular shapes with extra holes in the middle of the square patterns and one mini size 3/8 " thick with M3 or 4-40 holes on 1/2" – 12 mm hole spacings. See here **LINK** for the circular ones. The 6" – 300 mm diameter one is probably most appropriate here and not totally unaffordable. Probably have to turn it down a bit which is a shame.

Clive.