07/26/00 Today I cut the contrate wheel. I trued the back and front in a "box" -- a piece of wood fastened to the lathe faceplate which has a pocket cut in it EXACTLY the size of the OD of the contrate wheel.

I put the contrate wheel blank in the Sherline rotary table on the Sherline mill. It is supported in the photos by hardboard "packing". Then, I checked the runout of the blank on the rotary table using a dial indicator. Not too good, but then it doesn't have to be, since the cutter is moving toward the center of the wheel. Runout not usually allowed!

The teeth are cut. Pieces of tape are used on the mill cross feed to indicate minimum and maxiums of travel. If you don't do this, you'll ruin the wheel when you try to index it with the cutter not quite clear.

The wheel has 80 teeth, indexed to 4.5 degrees.

The operation was not successfull, since the edge of the contrate blank bent up while being cut -- perhaps due to a gap in the soft solder, perhaps because of a dull cutter. Will attempt a salvage operation tomorrow.

Links to today's photos:

Truing contrate back
Centering Flycutter
Checking runout
Flycutting contrate
Tape indicators