# Has anyone seen/bought the 3 or 4 inch rotary table at HF?



## Les (Feb 11, 2008)

Went down to HF to visit, and saw a new product, as described in subj line. I messed with it inside the packing and there didn't see to be much lash in the gear train, but impossible to tell for sure. Offered at $69.99.

Micro Mark sells one for a comparatively big price, *if *you get the index plate. W/O that, it's about double the cost above. Also, you can get a right angle mount from MM, for an even bigger end total $. Altogether, the MM with the attachments would have advantages (though possibly not in quality) but the HF would do.

Thoughts/opinions welcome.

Les


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## Semper Vaporo (Jan 2, 2008)

Haven't seen the HF one yet. Thanks for the info... I will go look tomorrow (right after I get back from the doll show).


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## xo18thfa (Jan 2, 2008)

I bought a Grizzly 4" (model H5940). It's OK. I use it for making spoked wheels fabrications. I like it because it has a MT1 center bore, which is handy for centering. This one has indexing plates, which I don't use. Grizzly also has a regular 4", which probably the same as the HF. For our Gauge 1 work, I think they would work fine.


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## John J (Dec 29, 2007)

Does anyone gots no link so alls of us can see whats uooos guys is taking about?


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## Dean Whipple (Jan 2, 2008)

Here you go JJ....... 

3 or 4 inch rotary table at HF


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## JackM (Jul 29, 2008)

One reason I spend so much at Harbor Freight is that they have tools I didn't know exist. Like this one. So, please pardon the "duh", but...what is it? How does one use it? For what? 

jack


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## John J (Dec 29, 2007)

Hey Jack 
You use it on you drill press to position things under the drill bit 

The last time I was at HF I was looking at the 3 or 4 different ones for X and Y axis. I didn't see the round one.


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## hcampbell (Jan 2, 2008)

I bought the 3" Grizzly, no complaints but I wish I'ld gotten the larger one. 
There isn't much room on a 3" after you allow for clamps and such. 

Harvey C.


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## xo18thfa (Jan 2, 2008)

I use my 4" rotary table to make spoked wheel assemblies. Start with roughed out rims and hubs and an assembly jig











Use the rotary table to take evenly spaced plunging cuts in the rim.










Do the same process for the hub.










Cut spokes and use the assembly jig to hold everything together for silver soldering










Use different jigs and parts for just about any spoked wheel. The counterbalances are flat brass soft soldered in


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## paintjockey (Jan 3, 2008)

Now that's just cool.


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## Totalwrecker (Feb 26, 2009)

Bob, that's beautiful work. 
Do you insulate at the axle? Or perhaps I shoud ask for those that run sparkies, can they be insulated fairly easy? 

Thanks for sharing a great tip. 
John


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## Semper Vaporo (Jan 2, 2008)

Les: My local HF didn't have the rotary tables in stock so I didn't get a chance to look at one or buy one... but I SPENT $40.00 anyway just for going in there! That's a dangerous store!!!!! And they went and gave me a coupon booklet and like an idiot I just looked at it and now I gotta go back and give them another $40.00!!!!! Dangerous store!... hee hee hee!


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## xo18thfa (Jan 2, 2008)

Posted By Totalwrecker on 11 Oct 2009 07:51 PM 
Bob, that's beautiful work. 
Do you insulate at the axle? Or perhaps I shoud ask for those that run sparkies, can they be insulated fairly easy? 

Thanks for sharing a great tip. 
John 
These are not insulated, they are for steam. But you could probably bush them with some kind of plastic pressed in the hub


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## Les (Feb 11, 2008)

Bob,

I must've neglected to hit the 'notify me' button on my post, I just found all these answers. I'd much, much rather have a table with an indexing plate than w/o. Didn't see such a thing at HF.

I'm not expecting manufacturing tolerances out of one.

Les


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## Les (Feb 11, 2008)

Jack,

No pardon necessary--I do the same thing. They have a small flanger/beader (?) I've never seen used as that work was out of my line. Every once in awhile I see something truly cool, and I've been known to stop customers in the aisle and ask if they can tell me anything.

Whatever it takes to learn, it takes, is one of my mottoes.

Les


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## Les (Feb 11, 2008)

Harvey,

Now, there's a good point for the 4".


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## Les (Feb 11, 2008)

Bob (or SteveC!!)

Is there a way to save your post into one downloadable doc? That would save me *so* much, uh .... reinventing the wheel.









And it'll go out of my head before I get around to making wheels.

Les


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## Les (Feb 11, 2008)

CT,

Some people go to Art Museums to contemplate. I go to Harbor Freight. 

Les


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## SteveC (Jan 2, 2008)

Posted By Les on 14 Oct 2009 02:01 PM 
Bob (or SteveC!!)

Is there a way to save your post into one downloadable doc? That would save me *so* much, uh .... reinventing the wheel.









And it'll go out of my head before I get around to making wheels.

Les
Les

Do you have MS/Word word-processing program installed on your computer?


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## jimtyp (Jan 2, 2008)

Freakin' cool! 

Can you tell me more about how one of these work? 
- The rotary table is motorized? 
- Is it sitting in a drill press? 
- What type of drill bit is used? 
- How do you make parts that are not round?


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## Les (Feb 11, 2008)

Posted By SteveC on 14 Oct 2009 02:48 PM 
Posted By Les on 14 Oct 2009 02:01 PM 
Bob (or SteveC!!)

Is there a way to save your post into one downloadable doc? That would save me *so* much, uh .... reinventing the wheel.









And it'll go out of my head before I get around to making wheels.

Les
Les

Do you have MS/Word word-processing program installed on your computer?


Steve, Yes I do.

L.


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## Semper Vaporo (Jan 2, 2008)

Posted By jimtyp on 14 Oct 2009 03:33 PM 
Freakin' cool! 

Can you tell me more about how one of these work? 
- The rotary table is motorized? 
- Is it sitting in a drill press? 
- What type of drill bit is used? 
- How do you make parts that are not round? 


The ones we are discussing here are not motorized but a rotary table can be motorized to aid in making circular patterns in a work piece.

It can be used in a drill press, but is more often used in a mill...which is similar to a drill press, but is much more rigid than the typical drill press. It has to be to take the pressure of pushing the "drill bit" sideways to remove the material sideways in a line instead of just a round hole down.

The cutting tool is usually somewhat like a drill bit, but sharper on the flute edges than a drill bit is. Other cutting devices can also be used; some look more like a round rasp, others are more like lathe bit and are spun in a circle so as to cut "on the fly", (usually used to flatten/smooth a whole surface sometimes to make it thinner or just to smooth it.

The idea of the rotary table is to put a "round" feature on a work piece, like a series of holes (or some other metal removal process) of uniform (or some specified irregular) angular spacing of a uniform radius. Although in conjuction with moving the whole table in the X or Y direction the radius can be varied too. 

It can also be used somewhat like a lathe to make a round part, but it has to be a short part (think something like a dish or wheel), unlike a lathe that can handle something much longer (think stair railing "spindles") since the mill bit is usually not longer than an inch or three and thus cannot reach deep along the length of the workpiece.

Non-round parts could be done, if the whole table is moved at the same time that the table is rotated. Difficult to do by manually turning cranks, but possible if both moving actions are under a computer control (CNC).


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## xo18thfa (Jan 2, 2008)

Posted By jimtyp on 14 Oct 2009 03:33 PM 
Freakin' cool! 

Can you tell me more about how one of these work? 
- The rotary table is motorized? 
- Is it sitting in a drill press? 
- What type of drill bit is used? 
- How do you make parts that are not round? 

My rotary table is hand cranked. I think Sherline has a motorized table that's an accessory for thier CNC mill. I have a Grizzly Mill/Drill It's basically a heavy beefed up drill press with a hand cranked x-y table. The spindle lock with a bolt so you can do milling work. The bit is an end mill. They are primarily used for cut alone the side of the bit. To cut slot for spokes, I used it more like a drill bit. Taking plunging cuts and then advancing the table about 0.020" and taking another plunge cut. These hubs were water jet cut, but I usually do the same thing by roughing with files and then finishing on a homemade die filer.


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## SteveC (Jan 2, 2008)

Posted By Les on 14 Oct 2009 05:01 PM Posted By SteveC on 14 Oct 2009 02:48 PM Posted By Les on 14 Oct 2009 02:01 PM Bob (or SteveC!!)

Is there a way to save your post into one downloadable doc? That would save me *so* much, uh .... reinventing the wheel.









And it'll go out of my head before I get around to making wheels.

Les
Les

Do you have MS/Word word-processing program installed on your computer?

Steve, Yes I do.

L.
OK, first off the following is far from being the only way to do this. The best thing about this method is it takes what you already have on your computer and uses that, so you don't have to locate, download, and install any other software.

To copy from MLS and then and paste what you've copied into a blank MS/Word document do the following.
[*] Start MS/Word with a blank document.










[*] Start MS/Internet Explorer and navigate to MLS.
[*] Locate and open the topic you're interested in.
[*] Find the reply that you want to copy.
[*] Position the reply so you can see the top of the reply message content area.
[*] Place the mouse cursor just to the left of the first character in the first line of text.
[*] Make sure that the cursor has the I-beam shape








and not the usual arrowhead








[*] Now depress and hold down the left mouse button, and drag it down and to the right to select what you wish to copy.

Note in the following image I've only selected...
[*] The first line of text.
[*] The blank line.
[*] The image.
[*] The blank line
[*] The next line of text.

[/list][*] We know that there is more content in the reply message and if I wanted to copy the rest. All I would need to do is drag the mouse cursor down into the status bar area of the browser window and the screen will start to automatically start to scroll further down the web page.
[/list][/list]








[*] Notice that in the above image that the only things selected (i.e. indicated by the blue background) are within the message area of the reply. This is an important point, because if you select anything outside the message area you're going to have a lot of editing to do because you'll be copying a bunch of nested tables, trust me.
[*] Next we need to copy what has been selected.










[*] To copy what is selected, simply place the mouse cursor over any of the blue background areas and right-click with the mouse. Then when the context menu displays point to and select the 'Copy' menu item.
[*] Now that we've selected and copied what we wanted. It's time to switch to the blank document in the MS/Word window.
[*] You can do this by...
[*] Clicking the MS/Word icon down on the task bar, or...
[*] Using the keyboard shortcut {Alt+Tab}
[/list][/list][/list]








[*] After switching to the MS/Word document window move the mouse cursor







to the right of where you want to put what you've copied (e.g. red rectangle in above image), and right-click with the mouse.
[/list]








[*] When the context menu displays, select and click the 'Paste' menu item.

Depending on what and/or how much you've copied, and the type of Internet connection it might take a fair amount of time to complete the paste operation so be patient and give it time to finish.
[/list]








[*] One thing you'll find is the images are usually to big when imported into the MS/Word document, to correct this do the following...
[*] Point to the image and double-click with the left mouse button.
[*] After the 'Format Picture' dialog displays, click the 'Size' tab.
[*] As indicated by the red rectangle in the above image select the value in the 'Width' field and type in 5.5 and tap the {Enter} key or click the OK button.
[/list][/list]








[*] As can be seen in the above image, the picture has been resized and now fits in the document. At this point you're pretty much done unless you want to do other editing. So all that's left is to save the document with a name of your choosing and where ever you want.
[/list] Yes sir, I know so here's a copy of this reply in a downloadable format.









MLS Copy & Paste Into MS/Word
File Type: PDF - File Size: 800KB
Left-click to open / Right-click to download[/b]


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## Les (Feb 11, 2008)

Steve,

Many, many thanks. I succeeded nicely in getting the 'MLS Doc' on my desktop. After breakfast an a half gallon of coffee, I'll try the wheel.

I appreciate the time and effort you spent on putting down this piece of info. Thanks again.









Les


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## jimtyp (Jan 2, 2008)

Thanks for the info CT & Bob. I've got to get one of these some day, I hope sooner than later  The possibilities look nearly endless.


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## Les (Feb 11, 2008)

Posted By jimtyp on 15 Oct 2009 10:37 AM 
Thanks for the info CT & Bob. I've got to get one of these some day, I hope sooner than later  The possibilities look nearly endless. 





Jim,

Might I suggest you look up 'index plates' or some variation on Google and find out about 'em. For an extra $30, I'm going to go that route--I forget who posted early in the thread, but they or someone else also said the Central Pneu./Chicago Tool (?) table was 4" dia rather than HF's 3", and that inch can make a bunch of difference! So can the index plate, once you learn about it. If you have doubts, just measure your drill press table and then the footprint of the rotating head.

Then, just for fun and education, go take a look at Micro Mark's. (It too is offshore).

Then, for a nasty shock, go look at a US industrial one.









Les


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## jimtyp (Jan 2, 2008)

Thanks Les. Goggled "rotary table index plates" and found some references, read through them but I could not comprehend what they are saying. My best guess is they are used for titling the rotary table? But I thought they would be used to gradually increase or decrease the diameter that the rotary table turns, so you can gradually drill out a larger and larger circle? I'm still confused. I understand what the rotary table does, but how do the index plates help? It also appears there are different type/number of holes in the different index plates, how do you know which one you may need?


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## SteveC (Jan 2, 2008)

Jim

Try this link, it's a Pdf file

http://littlemachineshop.com/instructions/2328DividingPlates.pdf[/b]


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## jimtyp (Jan 2, 2008)

Thanks Steve, you are always so organized  I'm still confused, but I don't want to take over this topic that someone else started. So I'll start a new one.


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## Les (Feb 11, 2008)

Posted By jimtyp on 15 Oct 2009 04:56 PM 
Thanks Steve, you are always so organized  I'm still confused, but I don't want to take over this topic that someone else started. So I'll start a new one. 






HEY!







I started it, and I don't care if it gets taken over or not. Sometimes people have related questions, which generate other related questions, and lots of times good information pops up out of nowhere. 

Les


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## Les (Feb 11, 2008)

Steve,

Many thanks for the Little Machine Shop PDF. I didn't even know they built one. I'll go check it out later, I think Friend Wife is rattling my food dish.

Les


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## Totalwrecker (Feb 26, 2009)

Posted By jimtyp on 15 Oct 2009 01:05 PM 
Thanks Les. Goggled "rotary table index plates" and found some references, read through them but I could not comprehend what they are saying. My best guess is they are used for titling the rotary table? But I thought they would be used to gradually increase or decrease the diameter that the rotary table turns, so you can gradually drill out a larger and larger circle? I'm still confused. I understand what the rotary table does, but how do the index plates help? It also appears there are different type/number of holes in the different index plates, how do you know which one you may need? 

Index plates allow you to evenly space holes as you turn the table. The one with my Unimat mill attachment has several rows of holes at different spacing and number of holes. If I wanted to put 20 spokes in a wheel, I'd look for a number (of holes) divisible by 20 and then skip as many holes as necessary to have the 20 evenly spaced. On the Unimat there's a spring loaded pointer that holds the head in the right position while I drill or machine.
Hope this helps. Even spacing is it's main use. the predrilled holes are already spaced correctly from each other, so you decide which row suits your needs. Saves a lot of set up time.

John


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## xo18thfa (Jan 2, 2008)

The tricky thing about rotary table is the set up. For best accuracy the table center has to start out directly in line with the mill spindle. There are a couple of ways to do it. The most accurate way is with a dial indicator on a trammel chucked in the mill spindle. Swing the dial indicator around the edge of the rotary table, adjusting the X - Y table axis until it is all zeroed out. The easier way is to put a sharp center in the rotary table and another in the lathe spindle. Lower the mill spindle down and place a razor blade between the two centers. Most like the razor blade will cant to one side. Adjust the X - Y until the razor blade is parallel to the mill bed. That will center everything up close enough.


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## SteveC (Jan 2, 2008)

Jim

Here's another link, this time to a product guide for the Grizzly 6" rotary table It has some pretty good explanations on how it can be used and how to use it. Hopefully it will clear up some of the confusion. Plus it too is in the PDF format so you can download a copy and keep it and peruse it at you leisure.









Grizzly Rotary Table[/b]


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## xo18thfa (Jan 2, 2008)

Posted By SteveC on 17 Oct 2009 06:13 AM 
Jim

Here's another link, this time to a product guide for the Grizzly 6" rotary table It has some pretty good explanations on how it can be used and how to use it. Hopefully it will clear up some of the confusion. Plus it too is in the PDF format so you can download a copy and keep it and peruse it at you leisure.









Grizzly Rotary Table[/b]


Thanks for posting this Steve. I don't know how many thousand times I've been to Grizzly's website and over looked this. I need to go thru that website again and see if there are more handy reference pubs.

Bob


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