Model Engineers’ Workshop – July 2019

July 2019 9

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Rotary Table

An Eleven-Inch

Rotary Table

I

ts been a while since I wrote anything

for this Magazine or Model engineer.

Workshop time has been somewhat

limited over the last few years but now

that I am semi-retired with a little more

time, I can put pen to paper, or should

that be keyboard to screen? Anyway, I am

back in the habit of taking photos and

thought that this latest creation might be

of some interest to my fellow readers.

Over the years the need to machine

parts with a large radius has cropped up

quite a few times. I have always managed

one way or another, but it has always

been a makeshift situation which is far

from ideal. My 4’’ rotary table, photo

1 , with an independent 4 jaw chuck

fitted gets a lot of use but does have its

obvious limitations. Now decent rotary

tables ain’t cheap so much so that a few

years ago I set to and built myself a 7’’

rotary table, photo 2. This has been a

very useful bit of kit especially for jobs

like cutting a large hole in the smoke box

plate, photo 3, for my current loco build,

Conway a 3½’’ gauge 0-4-0 by Martin

Richard Wightman makes a bumper accessory for his mill.

1

My 4” rotary table with 4-jaw independent chuck fi tted

2

My home made 7” rotary table

Evans. I have found a sacrifi cial table of

MDF is a cheap and easy way to mount

parts to be machined. But still jobs come

up that even the 7” table can’t cope with.

I need something bigger. For example, I

have to make the expansion links, fi g. 1, for

said loco but they have a radius of 4 9/ 1 6’’

( 9 ⅛” diameter) which clearly exceeds even

my 7’’ rotary table. I could have cobbled

something together to machine them