Wonderful old dividing heads show up on eBay, usually missing foot stock, and plates, When one turns up with the full kit there is a feeding frenzy and you have to decide between a dividing head or another blunderbus. I usually go for the blunderbus.

I bought the Vevor with the 4" chuck. The 5" looked unnecessary and rather clumsy. I have to remake the catch plate.

NB: I usually get the wrong word, it's an age thing, may not be a catch plate at all

If you have limited head room and don't already have a rotary table think about one of those. If you want to hold round stock in a chuck and drill a series of axial hole sin the end of the stock a dividing head will need a lot more head room than a rotary table with a chuck on it

You ought to look at a small rotary table designed to mount on its side first as it will provide you with dual function. Lots of them have dividing plate kit available.
Only progress to a dividing head when you are making enough gears to warrant it. Decide if you need one that tilts (semi-universal). Another variable is the taper, which of MT2 or MT3 etc might be more useful to you.

Quite a few smaller ones that don't tilt around including a couple of ME designs (Sparey, George T) for which castings are available. Also possible to DIY based on old headstock, old tailstock, spin indexer etc. So many options the problem is deciding which way to go.

Another variable is the nose thread if it doesn't come with a chuck fitted. The early BS0 from 'chindia' may have copied the original Browne and Sharpe thread but somewhere along the line it occurred to a UK importer to offer a Myford compatible thread for a bit extra. So they could be something different, including 55 or 60 degree thread even if the right tpi,

Before plumeping for a BS0 I suggest making a cardboard mock up to see how it fits, there must be dimensions on the net somwhere.

A fully universal enables you to index primes but nowadays you can just as easily 3d print a custom plate to enable you to do that on a plain head (see Thingiverse for a plate design you can customise)

Body is only about 100mm wide, additional width is the plates & handles that can possibly face the front. But would be a good 10" tall if you wanted to use it vertically

If you can find one, the Myford DH is nice.

Pictures here: **LINK**

Sits very low on the table or can be put on raising blocks for larger diameter items. Mandrel as MT2 socket and standard Myford nose fitting for chucks or collet closer. I generally use ordinary MT2 collets with a draw bar.

Mine is fitted with a stepper drive that I use on my VMB but also on the little CNC machine as a 4th axis.

There are 4 listed on eBay now.

Hi Steve this is my dividing head.

It has two positions taller for larger diameters on its side for more clearance under spindle. I bought it from the last Doncaster show for about £40.00 but I had to make two more plates for the gears I needed to cut.

David

I had assumed that the photo showing the spindle height was with the knee fully down which would rather put paid to any chance of cutting if the gear blank could not be got down far enough even if doing a vertical cut let alone a horizontal one unless it's a large dia bevel gear.

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Steve, those items in you photo are really indexers as they will just give a small range of numbers which will divide into the 48notched plate eg 2. 3, 4, 6, 8, 12 & 24.

If you could do away with the chuck and mount the gear blank to a short arbor fitted to the taper you may just be able to get it low enough to be able to cut a 45deg bevel, nor sure if there is a way to retain the tapered arbor in the socket.

I notice you also have a Dore, why can't you use that and just angle the dividing head on the mill table? That's how I do bevels on my vertical mill.