6" Swedish Fish (Dividing Head)

[That-Guy]

Many moons ago, before I had a lathe, before I had my own shop... I had a shaper. A Swedish Shaper Shaped Object to be exact (SSSO). This lived a rugged life in the great outdoors under cover. It got a lot of use, but seeing as I had lost my old shop thanks to some greedy landlords and the new one was yet to be built, it lived in my lane-way betwixt a tractor and a backhoe. There came a time I required a gear for a machine, that was long out of manufacture and was of a non-standard type. So, I thought "shapers can cut gears, no?". Well for those who don't want to read a novel, yes; for those that do, I'll say, well also no.

To cut this gear I went on the trusty ol' Kijiji (A name I love, it means "Village" in Swahili) and started looking for a dividing head. At the time they were all demanding a mint. I kept looking; Then I found the ticket, a Swedish built Varnamo 6" dividing head. It was rough, but I was excited and drove 4 hours in a freezing rain storm to pay way too much for it. My justification was that it was the same passport as the shaper. I got it home, waited for a dry day, and in -12 degree weather I set to work figuring out how best to get this all set up. I had a blank turned at my friends’ place, mounted it all in the chuck in a fashioned that looked like a disaster waiting to happen and set to work. 10 frozen toes, 10 frozen fingers and a frozen beer later I was done. It looked like a gear, not a great one mind you, but none the less. I installed it into said machine and did it work? No. Was it fun? Also. No.



After some commiseration, I went to try again and noticed some issues with my "new" dividing head. Namely there was too much backlash, the brake didn’t work right, and the sector arms seemed to wander. At this point, it went into the shed, I mothballed that project, and found a different way to waste my money and time. So that brings us to spring of last year. As some of you know I ended up with a second Brown and Sharpe No2 mill, and finally had the right tool to cut that odd ball gear. I had a gear cutter ground for the job and set to work, but I remembered that dammed dividing head.



I pulled it all apart and dove head long into loosing half the pieces and scattering them across my workshop, and my works workshop. Here are a few pictures of the tare down and clean up.

So as I started the disasemby, a few things became obvious. This thing was ABUSED! Look at that grease!

It had also had some repairs at some point in its life.

This cross bolt here decided it liked its home and stayed untill I got the easy out.

Then as I cleaned, I started to really see the damage.

At this point I did something I enjoy, and made what I could shine!!

This is where the project stayed. Planting came into season, work got silly, tractors needed engine overhauls and life needed living. So I tossed (what I thought was) all of it in a box and shelfed it for another time.
That time has come.

 

[That-Guy]

I’ll be honest here. I was hoping to make this a little more photo journalistic, but as is tradition I got caught up in the job and just kept going.

At some point in my disassembly, I pounded out a pin. That pin happened to be tapered and I tapped the wrong end. This resulted in the two tabs that hold the quick indexer lock to eject across the shop and some colourful language to be used. My first attempt to braze the two tangs back into their homes failed miserably. I decided to just take my time and build the tabs out of braze rod. It took more effort than I thought but overall, I was reasonably pleased with the results. Please ignore the flux crater… non structural area, and I was worried I’d melt the whole job if I were try to fix it.

I’m totally blown away that I didn’t take a picture of the next part. The three holes that held the two halves together were all chomped and cracked. Originally, they were ½-13, but at some point had ben “fixed” to 7/16-16. I went ahead and ground out all the cracks that I could find wide and deep enough for braze to hold and started at it. The first attempt literally blew up in my face. I think I forgot a bit of grease in a hole and when it vaporized it spat all my semi molten bronze right at me. Beard for the save.

Once I settled back down; I got a good braze on, then over to the mill to first pilot then re-drill. At this point I had a decision to make. Go back to original size or stick with the smaller. I ended up staying with the smaller size, just because there was so little meat left in the original casting at some points. This means I’ll have to make new cross bolts or buy them. Because of the 7/16 tap I needed to run I used a 3/8 endmill to open up the holes. I was worried a drill bit might catch or chatter in the intermix of cast and bronze. Well add another tool to the dumb jar. I grabbed my brand-new carbide end mill not the old HSS one, and it promptly broke. Silly mistake. Got the hole tapped and then I could start finishing up. Paint then a little assembly.

Next on the docket is to make some screws to hold the indexing plate to the table timing gear, and I have to make some balls or something to attach to the brake (which worked fine once I cleaned the grease off it), index plate lock and quick index lock. I've also got to clean up some more of my polishing compound. Funny how you can see these things in pictures so much better then on the bench.