Mandrel dividing on a South Bend lathe

[olderdan]

For many years now I have had a set up for dividing the lathe headstock for drilling, milling etc, using a live tool post spindle.
Unfortunately this has always involved a rather tedious and messy set up i.e. removing all the change gears, taking off the guards, reversing the banjo, etc.
Myford Super 7 owners are lucky to have a 60 tooth bull wheel for use but not so for my SouthBend.
The trouble has always been finding an alternative solid mounting point for my 60-1 dividing attachment mounted in the usual place at the end of the mandrel (I have ground the bore of which true for 4 inches as this is a drilled item and is rarely concentric). The alternative would be to locate the gear by the machined o/d of the mandrel end.
While removing the tumbler reverse gear assembly one day for cleaning, the light bulb in my head came on as I was looking at the perfect place, a solid hole in the head stock begging to be used for this.


A M/S expanding mandrel was soon made to fit said hole.

Now after removing one bolt and slipping out the tumbler I can now leave all the change gears in place while I fit the dividing set up in a few minutes, I am now much more inclined to use it and as a bonus it is more rigid than the original set up. The whole assembly is a bit on the rugged side as it doubles with my table dividing head.




I hope this is of some use to anyone who is lucky enough to own one of these lathes but the idea may be adaptable to other machines.