The Dividing Head & Deluxe Accessories

Nice to read

great reading.

I have spent the last several weeks gradually building the tooling needed to make my own gears. I have deviated from his plans in some areas but on other parts am following what he suggests fairly closely. I can also see making a steady rest at some point and will go back to this book for instructions. I do not have a Gingery Lathe but instead have an antique Sears Craftsman 109 lathe that has a lot of similarities. In fact I suspect he may have based some of his design on that type of unit. My lathe was missing most of the gears when I bought it at an auctionThe book has instructions for the following: Tooling Up (clamp dog, face plate, hand reamer, set screw chuck, an expanding arbour, hand threading), Steady Rest, Dividing head, Gear cutting, and adding change gears to the Gingery Lathe.If you have any interest in making any of those items you will probably benefit from studying this book and will likely take away some ideas you can use

This, like the remainder of the series, is a good book on building the particular items. It gives step by step detail on building the accessories and requires no specialized tools that you can't make yourself. It does use the some of the tools from the previous books, as the series is meant to be done in order. Probably the most useful item is the dividing head. If you have built the Gingery lathe, there are several useful items for that, including a four jaw chuck and change gears. As with the remainder of the Gingery books, it gives step by step details on both construction and techniques for building the mill, and gives you’re mind some stimulation in the design and building departments. You can do a web search and find examples of these accessories built and operating. There is also a Yahoo Group devoted to the Gingery machines if you need further inspiration.

This book is good but for those with good 3D visualizing embedded in their brains. The explanation almost purely verbal is not a strength for mechanics which are visual. Good ideas for making machines with simple and available materials. Would give 5 starts if there was drawings of how the parts are assembled together. Of course mechanics can figure that out. But, a good book should make that easier for the builder.