A lathe with indexing that won't break the bank?

[JohnR725]

1 hour ago, tomh207 said:

You also have another potential issue with head and tail stocks, in my research it would seem that for the American style lathes the head and tail stocks were bored as a pair

One of the problems we would have with a watchmaker's lathe is they were made over considerable span of time and manufacturing in the early days probably wasn't as good as it was today. Then if you look at the older catalogs typically it was just the head a few collets and something to rest graver on. So basically a basic lathe with over time things acquired but acquired things may or may not fit. Order today you purchase a used lathe that all kinds of nifty bits and pieces from a seller that acquired from?

1 hour ago, tomh207 said:

indexing is again not so straightforward for a watchmaker lathe, at least not as I have found so far. Often a lathe will come with basic indexing which is limited to 60 positions. The full index plates do come up at times for eywatering prices. It is very possible to do that electronically.

This would come back to that the basic watchmaker's lathe was used for basic watchmaking like turning things with a hand graver.

Then limited indexing is fine because you can make things like stems Which don't need a whole bunch indexing

 

1 hour ago, tomh207 said:

https://imakewatches.com/projects/MillingAttachment.html
 

In the link above the word vector is mentioned and at the link below you can purchase one. Then of course you're going to need the motor that's a little bit extra for the price.

https://www.hswalsh.com/product/lathe-vector-watchmakers-48-collets-hl11.

That you're going to need some bonus parts like these found this picture online show the classic way of classic gear cutting.

 

The lathe could have a much bigger indexing disk but it has to be mounted close to the edge. Otherwise you're going to have a whole bunch of smaller disks like this which I think has notches rather than holes.

Then as wonderful as these pictures look actually cutting a gear with this is not entirely fun. Look at all is belts all pulling on things and this is a watchmaker's lathe lightweight with lots of bits and pieces attached. It would make more sense if you actually cut a gear with something like this and it tends to be it's not really the best way to do it looks nice on paper but it is not the best way to go.

Reality for cutting watch parts would be a bigger machine is much better. Than getting rid of all those belts and pulleys also good.

Here is an interesting channel I would've liked of found a different video but this was nice and short if you look at his video as he uses a stepping motor and worm gear assembly for the indexing plate. In this particular video it gets attached to the lathe at about one minute and seven seconds and it looks like it's hiding looks like he has a Sherline. I do know he's had other stuff you'll just have to go through his videos to find it. Then at about one minute and 22 seconds you find out if you set up things appropriately. It's always bad we end up with half a tooth at the very end.

Then you will note big lathe yes he's getting a big gear but you could easily cut a watch gear with the setup. And it definitely way more stable than a watchmaker's lathe.

 

 

 

 

Oh here's a company they been in business since 1911

http://www.fwderbyshireinc.com/

 

[LittleWatchShop]

3 hours ago, coreymsnow said:

For example, a Sherline mill would appear to be either a separate piece of gear or an attachment/expansion to their smaller lathe. When you say you have a WW lathe and a sherline mill, can you say exactly what devices you have?

I posted pictures earlier in this thread. My lathe and mill are two separate instruments. I think I have seen examples of putting a milling head on a lathe bed...but not certain.

[caseback]

9 minutes ago, LittleWatchShop said:

. I think I have seen examples of putting a milling head on a lathe bed...but not certain

I believe @nickelsilver has a setup like that.

[coreymsnow]

Y'all are very helpful, I can't thank you enough for the insights.

 

[ChrisInOz]

You might like to see the contraption that I made for indexing on my Chinese lathe.   This is a 4 inch rotary table with dividing plates that I attached to my lathe mandrel using a drawbar.  It is completely manually operated. No electronics or computer needed.  I have used it to make a 60 tooth clock wheel.

I use a Sherline headstock on a vertical slide to drive the gear cutter.  The wheel blank is mounted on an aluminium "superglue arbor." This is the modern equivalent of a shellac chuck,  and allows the wheel to be centre bored, trued and the teeth cut in a single setup,  ensuring that concentricity is maintained.

 

The finished wheel after crossing.

I have not tried to make small watch parts on this lathe.  The runout on the mandrel bearings may be too high for that.  I won't know unless I try.

 

 

Edited 19 hours ago by ChrisInOz
more info

[tomh207]

@ChrisInOz your not Chris as in Clickspring are you? looks similar to some solutions I have seen him do.

 

Tom

[nickelsilver]

12 hours ago, caseback said:

I believe @nickelsilver has a setup like that.

I have a little milling attachment for my WW lathe, but very rarely use it and not for wheel and pinion cutting. For that I use a small Sixis 101 milling machine. I normally do direct dividing, but sometimes have to do an odd count and use the universal index which also fits on the Sixis.

 

Back in the day when I didn't have a mill, I would cut gearing on my Schaublin 102. It has a universal dividing attachment which fits the back of the spindle. Both it and the one for the Sixis are 60:1 ratio, and with the set of 4  index plates I can do almost any division. When I've had to do a strange high count prime number, I print a disc with the needed division and just place the plunger on the dot. Any position error is reduced by a factor of 60 so still plenty accurate.

 

The machines are a mess in the pics as I'm in the process of making a batch of barrels for a wristwatch .

 

This is the Sixis. The head can also be placed vertically, as can the dividing spindle.

 

Dividing plates. The smaller ones fit another dividing spindle.

 

Universal divider for the Sixis. I put it together with parts from an odd Sixis spindle that takes w20 collets, like the Schaublin 102, and a dividing attachment from a Schaublin mill.

 

 

The dividing attachment for the 102. The gear fits in place of the handwheel at the back of the headstock.

 

And the little milling attachment for the WW lathe. I just set it on the slide rest to illustrate the size, you can see from the dust on it it really doesn't get used much. I think only when I change bearing in the head, to kiss the collet head seat (grinding wheel still in the milling attachment).

Edited 11 hours ago by nickelsilver

[GuyMontag]

On 4/24/2025 at 10:25 AM, coreymsnow said:

Thank you all for the tips and insights. I'm looking carefully at the Sherline lathes with a milling attachment. I need to figure out exactly what I'd need to get in terms of the base lathe and attachments to be able to fabricate basic parts and learn how to fabricate some of the less basic ones- like a cannon pinion.

Thank you again.

This guy (Minimachining) has a playlist of him setting up and using various attachments on his Sherline lathe.

 

On 4/24/2025 at 3:26 AM, LittleWatchShop said:

I own too many WW lathes, as well as two sherline lathes and a sherline mill with a cnc indexing rotary table. The majority of my experience is using the WW lathes to make staffs, screws, and stems.

Recently, I have been experimenting making a pinion on the mill using the indexing table. It works. So, if you want to cut wheels, get the Sherline mill and indexing table...imho

I know nothing about CNC machines but had a question about making screws. Watchguy.uk has a section on his website where it allows you to enter parameters for screws and wheels and then 'generate code'. Is it as simple as that sounds, can you 'tell' the CNC machine to cut you a screw (or stem) by giving it the code for a particular screw or stem and it happily makes one for you?

[JohnR725]

1 hour ago, GuyMontag said:

Is it as simple as that sounds, can you 'tell' the CNC machine to cut you a screw (or stem) by giving it the code for a particular screw or stem and it happily makes one for you?

You're asking a pretty broad question and you didn't specify the machine but yes it's simple especially if you have the right machine.

The question has problems but I'll take it as it is. Is it really that simple yes especially if you have the right machine. So in the video below he's making a screw and yes it really is that simple but pay attention to the machine it is not simple at all probably wasn't cheap but it is small it will probably fit in your garage. Unfortunately wouldn't fit in my garage as it's far too cluttered up with things.

In the video he talks about making a screw and pay attention to the machine. The machine has lots and lots and lots of cutters and lots of things to do lots of machining all-in-one machine conceivably one step after another all programmable. If you look at his channel lots of CNC's stuff and there are several other videos related to this machine. He goes to the factory where they talk about it and show all the other machines they make in Switzerland.  I did look up the specifications the machine I don't recall the price it's not going to cut wheels I think it has a maximum diameter around 11 mm basically it's really good for making small diameter watch parts.

Then in one of the other videos he goes to a factory that used to make parts with waterpowered machinery been in business for 100 years and everything they now make is made with CNC machines including this one. What was interesting with the factory photo was that when they make some parts they can put them on a optical comparator comparator compares with whatever the reference is and the machine can be programmed to adjust its cutting to make sure everything is actually being made to specifications. Oh and then somewhere in all of this there was at least one picture of a balance staff can't have a CNC Swiss machine without making balance staffs.

 

1 hour ago, GuyMontag said:

wheels and then 'generate code'

It would be really nice if we had pictures of the machine. Then yes if you look at the page for wheel cutting you can enter parameters and it will generate a G code but he left out things?

Notice he has a picture of a complete wheel but the G code isn't making a complete wheel it's only cutting the gear teeth I don't see whereas the program for crossing out the spokes?

Typically when you see people cutting gears once the teeth are cut most the time the spokes are cut by hand. Occasionally someone will mill them out but typically not with the program which seems strange if you have CNC capability

for instance one of my friends fill it used to design assembly line equipment or things to make things. So his hobby was to continue to make tools to make things like clocks. Very interesting and clever clocks but his true fund was making the machines to make the clocks.

Then machine is not controlled by G code like we would typically find today as the stepping motor controller he has was made a long time ago and the individual controllers used a textbased program. So the company had a editor you could write a program to cause each the stepping motors to do something. So basically once you figure out how to cut a gear he would just change the parameters for different size gears

so here's an example of a gear as you can see we have the teeth and the spokes. Then we have a picture the machine which sucks because it would've been so much nicer if I could've taken a picture when it was cutting a gears so we can see things better. Then yes there is a worm gear stepping motor indexing this is a mini lathe and the indexing is at the end of the lathe head hiding.

The basic operation of this machine would be brass sheet not cut to a specific diameter size not even round mounted on the machine. Then it turns and a milling cutter will cut the diameter. Then the gear would be cut with a gear cutter. The same mill cutter for the diameter although conceivably change the size I don't know but basically the same milling for cutting the outer diameter would be used to cut the spokes. I really can't remember how he did the center hole but whatever it was was very precise.

 

 

 

 

 

[GuyMontag]

48 minutes ago, JohnR725 said:

You're asking a pretty broad question and you didn't specify the machine but yes it's simple especially if you have the right machine.

The question has problems but I'll take it as it is. Is it really that simple yes especially if you have the right machine. So in the video below he's making a screw and yes it really is that simple but pay attention to the machine it is not simple at all probably wasn't cheap but it is small it will probably fit in your garage. Unfortunately wouldn't fit in my garage as it's far too cluttered up with things.

In the video he talks about making a screw and pay attention to the machine. The machine has lots and lots and lots of cutters and lots of things to do lots of machining all-in-one machine conceivably one step after another all programmable. If you look at his channel lots of CNC's stuff and there are several other videos related to this machine. He goes to the factory where they talk about it and show all the other machines they make in Switzerland.  I did look up the specifications the machine I don't recall the price it's not going to cut wheels I think it has a maximum diameter around 11 mm basically it's really good for making small diameter watch parts.

Then in one of the other videos he goes to a factory that used to make parts with waterpowered machinery been in business for 100 years and everything they now make is made with CNC machines including this one. What was interesting with the factory photo was that when they make some parts they can put them on a optical comparator comparator compares with whatever the reference is and the machine can be programmed to adjust its cutting to make sure everything is actually being made to specifications. Oh and then somewhere in all of this there was at least one picture of a balance staff can't have a CNC Swiss machine without making balance staffs.

 

It would be really nice if we had pictures of the machine. Then yes if you look at the page for wheel cutting you can enter parameters and it will generate a G code but he left out things?

Notice he has a picture of a complete wheel but the G code isn't making a complete wheel it's only cutting the gear teeth I don't see whereas the program for crossing out the spokes?

Typically when you see people cutting gears once the teeth are cut most the time the spokes are cut by hand. Occasionally someone will mill them out but typically not with the program which seems strange if you have CNC capability

for instance one of my friends fill it used to design assembly line equipment or things to make things. So his hobby was to continue to make tools to make things like clocks. Very interesting and clever clocks but his true fund was making the machines to make the clocks.

Then machine is not controlled by G code like we would typically find today as the stepping motor controller he has was made a long time ago and the individual controllers used a textbased program. So the company had a editor you could write a program to cause each the stepping motors to do something. So basically once you figure out how to cut a gear he would just change the parameters for different size gears

so here's an example of a gear as you can see we have the teeth and the spokes. Then we have a picture the machine which sucks because it would've been so much nicer if I could've taken a picture when it was cutting a gears so we can see things better. Then yes there is a worm gear stepping motor indexing this is a mini lathe and the indexing is at the end of the lathe head hiding.

The basic operation of this machine would be brass sheet not cut to a specific diameter size not even round mounted on the machine. Then it turns and a milling cutter will cut the diameter. Then the gear would be cut with a gear cutter. The same mill cutter for the diameter although conceivably change the size I don't know but basically the same milling for cutting the outer diameter would be used to cut the spokes. I really can't remember how he did the center hole but whatever it was was very precise.

 

 

 

 

 

Interesting, thanks for the detailed post. I saw one of those Swiss Nano machines a while back in another youtube video from  the Weiss Watch Company.