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New rotary table

DavidR8

DavidR8

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A 6” rotary table with tailstock and dividing plates.
For $350 CDN delivered I am very impressed with it.
Once I cleaned off the remains of the La Brea tar pit it’s remarkably well made.
Minimal backlash and very solid.
Need a chuck for it now... 3 jaw or 4 jaw?
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Hi David,

A friend pointed this out to me last year. Take another look at the sellers image and check to make sure yours is the same. Some of the sellers supply two similar but different units under the same part number.
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Notice this image has a ground front lower surface. Another surface you can use for setting up. Same price, same part number, same store.......when I was looking around last year.
 
Thanks Perry, the listing for mine does not have that milled surface. Nor do any of the others from the same seller.
It seems a good idea to mill it flat though.
 
Wouldn't hurt to call them and ask them to check their stock. You never know. :) I'm guessing that surface is ground. Not a deal breaker , but if it is the same price I can see it being useful.
 
4 jaw is one you can do anything with, but you have to live with the fact it is slower. Definitely my preferred choice.

-- That said, I picked up a cheap 3 jaw scroll chuck for mine (150$) for quick setups. sort of an impulse purchase...
 
If I had to chose one chuck for the RT it would be a 4 jaw. That way you can dial in any part perfect or hold odd shapes. I have a 5" diameter Gator chuck mostly for this purpose although I can use on my lathe, I got D1-4 apater plate same time. But it required me to machine a back plate adapter to marry them. So the stack-up starts to approach maybe 5" or more from top of jaw to RT surface. The wedding cake syndrome if you have limited head room. A 3J scroll chuck is quicker but if you get one that is too cheap it may or may not be repeatable, depending on accuracy you're after.

Another option is this ER collet plate. Lower profile but only holds circular parts to limit of collet capacity. You can get them relatively inexpensively. I've seen them with 4 holes too but shouldnt be an issue to drill your own. I think I would also mill 2 parallel flats on the edge so you can grip it in a mill vise & now have a nice repeatable way to grip round things vertically without vee blocks & such.
 

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Thanks gents, I’ll keep my eye open for a reasonable 4” 4-jaw chuck.
The ER chuck is an interesting idea. I had a moment where I thought I could use my ER32 mill chuck as it has an MT taper. Alas it’s an MT3 and the table is MT2.


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Glad it worked out. The SOBA I had, had excessive backlash that you couldn't tune out. Worked ok for indexing but you couldn't mill anything on it.
 
Another chuck feature to look for is reversible jaws so you can grip larger diameter objects. A non-reversible might have 2 jaw sets, small & large set, but check included if its a used buy.
 
Test that a taper does fit, the RT I bought had a ridge about half way down that stopped the taper from seating tight. It took a few minutes with a small drum sander to remove the ridge and now it works okay.
 
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