Lathe on shopbot - cutting flutes on round stock

[twiles]

I am considering mounting a Lathe on my shopbot, and believe I have all of the details worked out on how I will do it. However, one thing that I would like to be able to do is cut flutes in the turnings. I was wondering if anyone has done this and come up with a good idea for locking the turning or round stock in a location to be able to cut the flutes.
I do not plan to cut spiral flutes, so there is no need to add another stepper motor or anything that complicated. Just some sort of a mechanical stop, with an incremental indexed stop of some sort. Anyone have a creative solution??

[bjwat@comcast.net]

I think that you might be better off mounting a horizontal rotary table instead of a lathe...It would allow you to dial in with relative precision and consistency, and if you are not planning on doing spiral work, there is no need for a syncronized stepper.

Check out www.grizzly.com They have economical rotary tables for this type of thing.

Hope that helps,
Brady

[matt@podworksonline.com]

Terry,

How about a collet indexer? They typically lock in every 15 degrees. You could make a base plate for a three jaw chuck to fit the collet and you're in business.

MSC Online carries inexpensive indexers:
http://www.mscdirect.com/IWCatProductPage.process?Merchant_Id=1&Section_Id= 1013&pcount=15&Product_Id=123032&Keyword=Y

Harbor Freight carries inexpensive chucks:
http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/Displayitem.taf?itemnumber=47458

Matt W.

[gerald_d]

Terry, I guess your work is decorative and you don't need better than 1 degree accuracy? In that case I would use a protractor scale, a pointer and clamp(brake). I have used AutoCad to draw a linear scale with 360 divisions on a strip of paper that I wrap around the chuck and then varnish.