Universal Dividing head

[Tom Kitta]

I have this universal dividing head that I don't need (I have another one that is from K&T machine). It looks to be in excellent condition and came from University of Alberta. I could not find makers mark despite looking - it looks to be part of a horizontal universal milling machine. Anyone recognize what is it?

There is a double sided plate for direct indexing and single plate for simple indexing in addition to a large label explaining compound indexing as well as differential indexing (the tail part moves the indexing plate via gear at the end of the shaft).

DV takes 8" chuck and is around 30 kg or so in weight. Gear ratio is 1:40. Indexer has 47, 41, 37, 31, 27, 23, 20, 18, 15.

eBay is not much help for values as they either have machines from China or beaten up old US iron. Also most DV are semi-universal not full universal. Anyone venture out value? Same size new China is around 1000 CAD (no chuck but tail-stock and change plates). Same size beaten up US is around 500 USD (sometimes chuck, frequently no tail). But neither is full universal.

 

[Johnwa]

It’s actually a differential dividing head. And I know nothing about them other than finding this video.

 

[Tom Kitta]

Differential dividing can only be done on universal DV so I guess you can call it differential DV.

Great video - through I mostly would use the gear shaft to connect to a mill (as he says in the video) to mill helical gears. In comments there is a link to Vertix BS02 DV - https://store.metaltechtools.com/ma...-dividing-plates-and-tailstock-bs-2-1001-052/

They are actually what I found on eBay - just their top model - https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=m570.l1313&_nkw=Vertex+dividing+head&_sacat=0

Made in Taiwan -- https://www.penntoolco.com/vertex-machinery-and-tools/

So 1200 USD = 1600 CAD plus tax / shipping new from Taiwan with extra plates and gears as well as tail stock. It may be had cheaper somewhere else.

There are 3 types of DV, plain (cannot tilt), semi-universal (can tilt) and universal (can tilt and do differential stuff with gears). Ideally I would find out which machine this came from - there is a machine number stamped on it 3900 something.

For me universal DV == helical gears. For this you either need universal horizontal (with table tilt) or supposedly you can tilt the ram on a BP for same effect.

I wonder whatever you can buy from vertex gears alone (I known you can tail-stock).