Supersized versatile dividing head

[AlanS]

I really admire the designs of George Thomas, having made most of them over the years. Castings are available for his versatile dividing head and universal pillar tool. They, like all of his designs are suited for smaller workshop equipment, particularly the Myford series 7 lathe. When I built my versatile dividing head I “supersized” it by a factor of approximately 150% and as a result had to use fabricated and billet components. This picture shows the dividing head in use drilling and milling the starting bar holes in the flywheel for my model Cat Sixty crawler tractor.
When I made the spindle I screw cut the end the same as my Atlas 10 inch lathe so I could share chucks. The dividing plate is 3/8” thick and drilled double sided.

 

[gbritnell]

Very nice job! At times I wish mine was a bit bigger.

 

[AlanS]

Very nice job! At times I wish mine was a bit bigger.

I did the same with the pillar tool, roughly 135% bigger within the limitations of standard diameter materials. Instead of bushings I used needle roller bearings. Same with several of George’s other designs, they were all made chunkier. The only one I made but ended up not using was the quick retracting compound slide, I removed the retract function and retained the geared feature.

Very nice job! At times I wish mine was a bit bigger.