One of the things that you quickly learn when cutting teeth, is that the cutter depth of cut is a visual thing to form a tooth under optics in almost all cases, as opposed to a calculated depth.Īs such, if the machining process is not clearly visible to optics when setting the depth/form of the first tooth or so, the process can quickly become trial and error.įor work pieces within its envelope including wheel/pinion, I favor the Sherline 5400 in that it is easily configured for very clear visibility of the tooth cutting process per the first couple of photos,īy adding the Sherline CNC rotary table, testing and adjusting tooth forms is a quick and easy procedure. If you intend to work on larger clocks maybe a larger machine would suit you better? However, out of the few I’ve seriously considered the Cowells is the smallest. I’m in a situation where the machines I’m choosing between are far between, geographically and I’ve not been able to try them out. I think the precision and ease with which you can use modern stepper motors would be perfect for making one off wheels with a high number of teeth such as you describe. They sell it paired with a controller but I’m going to put off getting that as the table can still be used manually and I think building a controller could be a fun project.ĬNC dividing could be viewed as being no sport, but looking back on horological history, accurate diving has been in constant evolution. What milling machine to get and how to divide for wheel and pinion cutting.Īt long last (I think it’s been five years now where I’ve put off getting the gear due to not knowing what to get, financial situation from being a student and space issues) I’ve finally settled on a Sherline 5410 milling machine and their stepper motor equipped rotary table. While I’m not in your exact situation, I’ve been pondering the exact same thing for quite some time now. I am thinking that acquiring a smallish but high quality milling machine (such as a Cowells) together with a dividing head coupled to an electronically driven servo motor could be the answer rather than, say, a dividing head to be fitted to either of the lathes.Īny thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated. My ambition is to make an equation of time differential, which requires a year wheel (365 = 73 x 15 or 366 = 61 x 6), and possibly a clock with both a sidereal and mean time train which would also need quite a few exotic primes. My latest clockmaking ideas however involve cutting some quite high prime number wheels not available on the club's wheel cutting engine. The club also has a drill stand and a milling machine which I can use to cut my pinions. I am thinking of investing in some additional tooling, especially for gear and pinion cutting.Īs as a member of a horology club I have access to an old wheel cutting engine where I have cut missing wheels for clocks under repair and the initial set of wheels for the going train of my current clock. In my tiny workshop in London I have two lathes: a Cowells and a Myford ML10, but no drill stand, milling machine or means of dividing. I repair clocks as a hobby and have now started to build clocks from scratch.
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