These tables and other similarly priced items seem to be made in India rather than China; not that it matters much, they still have the same variations in Quality Assurance™ - variations which range from 'merely cosmetic defects but otherwise ok' to just outright roughly manufactured, poorly designed or made, and/or downright unusable. But the silver lining? If this can be taken apart and all the flaws in the mechanism fixed up or replaced with well-made shop-made parts, as well as other quality of life improvements, not only does one get a reliable quality tool to use while skipping all the other troublesome and expensive manufacturing steps (in contrast to making the whole thing from scratch) but also learn how it works and how to fix or remake things if something else in it breaks, or a part has to be made for a similar tool. It has always been the case that anything that is normally expensive being this cheap, or in this case, 'cheaply made' has to be treated like a 'kit' or a 'project' that will almost always need to be worked and re-worked, torn down to bits and rebuilt better than before. Plus, you get to make a rebuild video.
@@asakayosapro 30 years ago I worked in a pattern shop and a friend (also machinist & pattern maker with 20+ years experience at the time) took me over to Tree Machine in Racine Wisconsin to meet one of his friends and look around. Even though they had foundries in the immediate area, it was still cheaper to buy from China. But the irons they got would have things like ball bearings in it, which makes it hard to machine at a production rate. They ended up just buying whole machines from China, tearing them down, redoing the ways, replacing screws with roller bearings, and installing their brand of CNC.
I've watched a few of those manufacturing videos from Pakistan and the end products went into "Made in China" packaging ! I try to buy good second hand stuff, but sometimes you have to go for the Far East option, then I treat it as a "kit of parts" that's gonna need some fettling ?
@@ianbertenshaw4350 I ordered the 6" Vertex today myself but still have no idea where it is made, I've seen a few video's with it being used and one with a tear down and they seemed impressed with it.
I have Vertex rotary table. It is probably a mid price point and has suited what I do. It has a 90/1 drive ratio which gives better resolution but takes alot of cranking to get there 😁. Fitted with dividing plates I have produced great gears and other exciting stuff. The only downside is it is not tilting but I can live with that but it can be mounted vertically & horizontally. It needed stripping and cleaning before first use but I tend to expect that with any tool and satisfys my craving to take stuff apart to see how they work 🤪. I have the matching tailstock and that has proved invaluable to provide rigidity on longer projects and when using mandrels.
Maybe you already caught it but at the end when you were facing the top of your part in the 3 jar chuck it tweaked over some in the chuck. You can see the gap between the chuck face and the part and it's still there when you have it tilted. That kind of stuff just frustrates when so much time is involved. Great job and thanks for all of the content!
This! That time lapse camera made it stand out like a sore thumb. I have gambled on some cheap tools (as we all have) because I needed something quick and cheap, or knew it was only to get me through one job, and it is super frustrating when the quality is so poor that it literally cannot be used without breaking end mills and scrapping parts. Thanks for another great video.
@dieselwelds Those 3 jar Chuck's are marvelous things aren't they, you can keep pickled onions in one jar, fingernail clippings in another jar and grandmas ashes in the third jar. Superb.
Gday, frustrating when this happens, I brought the 8” vertex RT and super happy, mate of mine brought the 6” vertex and can’t fault that either, Taiwanese made is the way to go I think mate, cheers
I have a version from RDG in the UK; looks identical. The T slots are not even on centre or 90° to each other on mine. Absolute garbage. Had the same issue with the lock screw too.
My reply from 5 hours ago has gone? OK, rinse and repeat: It turns out that the construction of this particular device leaves a lot to be desired, which reminds me of my old crappy rotary table. But, you can fix it I think. Unscrew the hex bolt from the bottom of the table spindle, and put a longer old bolt in there, so that you can tap or push the table out of the bearing. You will see that only the bottom has a bearing, and the top of the table has none. I have changed this lousy construction by turning a recess in the housing about 2mm deep, into which the underside of the table fits accurately. The housing just fitted in my 4 jaw chuck. I also removed a few tenths of a mm from the bottom of the table, now it runs true. The axis of the table has been shortened slightly (2 mm and a bit), so that the table can sink 2 mm into the recess. I tightened the hex bolt until the underside of the table nearly touches the bottom of the recess. The table is now also supported at the top by the recess, which improves the rigidity enormously and now it turns much more accurately.
I’ve gotten it apart and I can see exactly how you have gone about this. Might require a few late nights but I might and go about this in a similar way
People don't understand that businesses in continental china seem to share a lot of tooling with eachother. You can see products using the same parts coming out of opposite ends of the country. And often it'd make no sense for the parts to have came out of the same factory.
From machinery warehouse, they just buy the same $130 unit from china and rebadge it and sell for $220. That price difference gives them a bit of profit and covers the cost of units being returned and refunded because it is chinese crud.
The "returns and bargains" section out the rear often has some good bargains. I used to live just up the road, and dropped in periodically to see what I could score.
@@real_mikkim At least its cheap and keeps us out of the pubs at night. I'm doing a variant on the theme ... turning a made in INDIA 4" X 7.3" VEVOR Cross Slide Table into a milling attachment for my 70 year old Craftsman 12-24 lathe. So far it looks like the Indian made crap is somewhat better than that made by the Chinese.
I worked 40 years as a toolmaker and design engineer at Ford UK Product Development, and I loved the rotary table we had in our workshop. For many years, we had no hoist, and the dividing head was too heavy to be easily moved by one person. But most of all, the rotary table is so simple and quick to use if you just needed half a dozen indexed holes that you could click into the marked indents. It looked like you were using a multitoothed rose bit to cut the chamfer. My experience is they try their very hardest to chatter and leave a poor surface finish. I use Chinese cheep-as-chips single edged countersinks in my home shop and at the Menz Shed, and so long as you keep the speed down they do a lovely job and last for ages. I have even seen Kurtis from Cutting Edge Engineering Australia use one to machine wide chamfers on parts, although he would be using high quality, and expensive, tooling. This is the first of your videos I have watched, and I'll be subscribing for sure.
I bought basically the same from amazon here in the US (about 120 USD), and ran into the exact same issues. Still need to tear it down and modify/rebuild it, but i got it planning on having to basically treat it as a raw casting kit.
Hello Artisan, I have been following your channel very closely for some time now and have been inspired to come up with interesting solutions when implementing my own projects. Since owning my own milling machine, which is now three and a half years, I am aware that all this is not a low budget hobby. I find it very positive that you also present and test inexpensive tools and show possibilities for modification. To be able to realize my own projects I had to buy various accessories for my milling machine over the last years. Sometimes it es also in Germany quite difficult to find products in the right cost range. My general experience is not to save money on equipment even if you have a small budget. With a dividing head in this price range, I don't think you can expect the quality reserves that you need for long-term precise work. This video shows this very clearly. Given the variety of products, it has become very difficult to find sufficiently good and precise quality for an acceptable price. If in doubt, I think it is better to spend a little more and buy a product that is stable, precise and reliable. With good tools, work is simply more enjoyable and better results are achieved. Thank you for the honest product presentation. Please keep up the good work. With kind Regards form my Workshop in Germany
The major advantage you have in Germany is that you still have a huge manufacturing base. There will always be a pretty good supply of used, but high quality machine tools and accessories easily available to you. Here in the UK we are better off than Australia, but it is nothing like as easy these days to pick up good quality used accessories. Most of them, particularly dividing heads and rotary tables suitable for a home workshop are at their end of life.
We use worm gears a lot in astronomy, many times performance can be drastically improved by lapping the gears. Also setting backlash settings too tight will cause binding especially if worm gear or the ring gear are not concentric
Yes. I did that, just cleaned up the edges n polished them. Felt good but theres no adjusting the backlash in these. At least not mine 3 inch from India
I would agree with the comments made below re the Vertex brand. I have always had great success with their products. Old saying - "The sweetness of quality is remembered long after the pain of price is forgotten". Good luck mate!
The version I heard and always stuck with me was "Pay once, cry once." Biggest mistake I made was buying a Sieg, the money could have been far better spent on a proper quality mill.
Once more this makes just one thing clear: no matter what you buy and from which brand you buy: it is about the expected QC, not so much about where the factory is located.
I bought a non tilting rotary table from Qtech tools who claim to be an Australian company for $150. Wish i had saved my money because it is a piece of crap! it looks good on the outside and that's about it. i mounted a piece of mild steel to open up a curved slot (cutter diameter was less than the slot) with a light cut the end mill grabbed and spun the table (10/15mm) and painted a racing stripe in my jocks. Nun the less i finished with a hand file and wont use it again until i strip it down and assess the issues. Qtech had very poor customer service, I won't buy from them again!! Great video keep up the good work. Ps. i haven't forgotten that gearbox casting you did a while back.
These cheap rotary tables actually have their uses , you can use them to make precision (sort of) specialty fixtures you want to leave set up permanently! As someone that has spent thousands of dollars on rotary tables I can say it’s a lot easier to handle not having access to a cheap one rather then that really expensive RT you trust with tight tolerance work!
Yea i bought a cheap small 3" one of Amazon and it's really cheaply made. But it's not the tilting variety. I did buy one of those also previously but those are even worse as nothing is square and accuracy is way off. That's also the case for the fixed one but to a lesser degree but still far from being anywhere close to a precision tool. It does work OK for my purposes since my machining is done strictly as a hobby but I'm still going to invest in a higher quality one at some point. I've just been procrastinating that for a while since I don't end up needing to use the rotary table that often, but when I do it's frustrating sometimes. Although the rotary plate on it is quite flat, within less than a thou over all sides. After disassembling, cleaning, deburring sharp edges and putting new grease it operated much smoother. The only issue is that there is a bit of lift when machining, that's what makes it frustrating and the other frustrating part I've found is that the chucks I've bought for it are nowhere near accurate enough, so these issues compound on one another. Altogether i can still make ok parts on them but they are quite a bit off from the accuracy i'd like even just for hobby work.
I bought the same one a few months ago. It's Awesome after a few little mods and about 6-7hrs of Black Dog-inspiring work. I had to fully dismantle to clean out all the swarf from manufacturing. The operation was rough as guts! Add a Brass 'Race' between the Face Plate/Body. Debur and re-Index the Worm Gear before it sheared the teeth off its mate, which was also re-indexed. Added a sealed bearing to either side of the Hand Wheel. I would also Slot one of the Mounting Holes, as the unit won't sit parallel to your Table. Add a Spring under that cute lil Table Lock Bolt before it vibrates out and shoots your neighbor. Nipping this Bolt up to drag helps reduce Harmonics. However, you can get the s**Ts, coupled with an optimum RPM for the Spindle around 3000+ to take advantage of the Chatter. The table practically revolves itself!
I've got the same rotary table, and the same issues as you have. The little thumb locking screw has a taper which is supposed to lock the table via an angled groove in the table, which tends to lift the table upwards. I stripped mine down hoping to machine a better groove to apply downwards pressure but there isn't enough metal to do it!!!
@@ferrumignis no because there is not enough metal, the rotating table is very shallow in the main body. The worm and wheel take up most of the space. A downward clamping force is needed,but it might stop rotation! Can't win really!
Yeah like most chinese stuff you need to think of it like a kit of spare parts that might work well... after you do heaps of rebuilding and mods to it.
Have you stripped it down and cleaned the inside yet ? I bought an identical RT and it felt gritty . When stripped it was full of grease and casting sand making an excellent grinding paste ! It's now much smoother and feels better in use. I certainly wouldn't recommend this RT to any one. Having said that it has been useful for my intended uses.
I have the same table. (different brand but same table) I ran into all the same problems but there's solutions, as you have illustrated. I just put brass inserts into my stops or locks as I was afraid the stock hardware would gouge the surfaces, making it that much more difficult to get accuracy & precision over time. I also adjusted the pointer on the tilt but you should always indicate with something better if you need accuracy. It's not terrible but I think I got it for 75 or 80 bucks about five years ago so I'm not nearly as disappointed.
I always seem to run into having tooling not quite big enough for the next project. I bought an 8" Vertex H/V rotary table. It seems quite OK except it only has 3 T slots. By the time I get a part clamped in place, the useful area is down to around 6". I cast an 11" disc of aluminum and mounted it to the RT. With 8 T slots it makes the table much more useful. I have an 8" chuck that thru bolts to the RT but makes it too heavy for my old body to move as one piece. I have the set of indexing plates and footstock but rarely use them.
Interesting. I have just come across your video which has exactly the same issues I had. I bought the same size rotary table but without the tilt function and it too wobbled in exactly the same way. I did not want to spend ages re-machining surfaces so the underside of the top part fitted flush with the nicely ground surface. I checked and the table was nice and concentric and after a lot of thought decided to fit 4 M5 brass grub screws with flat tops inserted through from the top held in place with thread lock. I could then adjust the wobble until there was none but at the same time there was not too much drag. I too had problems with the poor fit of the worm against the gear but in my case there was no way to adjust it. The inside of mine was filled with grinding dust and it needed a good clean. It is a shame that someone went almost all the way to make a reasonable tool but tried too hard to do it cheaply. Mine is workable but disappointing. Not aware that there is an alternative in the 100mm size. John
I did modify a 100mm chuck by drilling 6.5mm through-holes from the face to the back and adding recesses to the face for socket head screws. I am using 1/4-20 bolts, but M6 is fine as well. my t-nuts are 3/8-16 threaded, but I have tons of reducer bushings from the photo/video business, so the bolts thread easily into the t-nuts. this allows me to mount the chuck straight onto the mill table without using strap clamps, as well as straight to my rotary table... no backplates necessary.
Bit of a let down, but then again I suppose if you are not buying high end precision gear, you have to accept that will happen occasionally. But overall for the home shop, this sort of price bracket is still the way to go and overall far better value for money spent. Hopefully your new clamp will prove to do the job and make it a useful tool going forward.
I wanted to make a backplate for my rotary table. I liked your idea of bolting the backplate to rotary table for machining OD. I have a 6" India make table that I got for about $150. It has 72:1 ratio and comes with indexing plates. It also has the clamps that you had to make. Overall I think it is a good product for that price.
Thank for the video, as always you provided great content. You're competency seems to be well beyond the level of machines and budget you're working with. Watching and learning you techniques as you "bootstrap" with cheep "Chinese quality" machines and tools into a capable shop is really helpful. I also bought a rotary index, thinking I could use it as a rotary table. But my machine is also limited in it's Z. Great advice, I'm sorry the rotary table won't likely have much future use. I'll look now to see if you have a Patron site I can join and help offset your cost, you certainly saved me from wasting money on one of these tilting rotary tables. Thanks again.
Love your videos. Every once in a while, you might want to do a video on some of what you actually make. We'd love to see what you do when you aren't machining the machines that you use to machine what you actually make.
"Very expensive spinny things that almost do the same thing" sounds like it could be an alternative name for the sport/discipline of hobby machining. The hobby includes periodic visits from the Hindsight Fairy who inevitably either says, "Should have spent more money to get the good one," and, "OOh, you lashed out and bought the good one. How often you reckon you'll use it?" The Hindsight Fairy is an idiot, and I drown out its unsolicited feedback by turning bar stock into artefacts.
I have one, tried fixing it myself. No. It needs melted down. What it would take to fix it would cost more than buying a good one. That is what I did. Got a good one.
There skateboard bearings what did you expect? You need those. 0.0001 tolerance bearings, but a way to use one on top. My "anti backlash bolt" doesn't even go in straight, basically at 7 o'clock looking at noon instead 1.
13:42 That's it the dreaded "Tear it down" phrase. Tear it down means to “demolish” it. If your going to clean and rebuild something, then bloody well say so. All credibility has now gone.
For a long time I earned good money for fixing and tuning cheap tools. They became a bit more expensive but not anything as close a the professional solutions. Nowadays it doesn't make any sense, because the Chinese have become way better in copying...
SO... my take away from this. Damn nice fixes for what you had, the item itself should be melted down then delivered, at high speed, to the vendor with your complaints engraved on the outside of the blob.
Got the same one different name (Canada) was all but useless out of the box. Tear down, CLEAN, lube. useable but did not expect a lot for the price and needed it for ONE job at the time and with a little finess did the job great
You go through a lot of explaining of trying to justify why you bought this rotary table. Coming from a metal fabricator, it's a tool you need, so just get it. This is coming from a guy that has 6 angle grinders and 8 hand drills. 😁
Ótima apresentação do produto, é lamentável obter a aquisição de um produto de baixa qualidade, notei que esse produto irá resultar na Fabricacao de peças imprecisas.
I bought it about three years ago and got the same results. It must be modified or thrown away. The use of a ball bearing is completely unsatisfactory. After modifications, it is partially usable, but not for precision milling.
I have the same! you should never buy this .. on the second use. the inner gear broke!!. it's a shame you didn't dismantle everything to show how badly it's built inside...
Rebuild it and fix the dumpy parts. There are several parts there you can reuse that are hard to make but the base and innards are chunky and you can solve the cheap Chineasium issues.
Recommend vertex rotary tables. They're not the best but the 100mm one I got from General Tools in Adelaide has been very good. (Edit) Vertex 6" tilting rotary table is ~$1600 🙀
@@HM-Projects I managed to pick up a new HV04 with dividing plates for £120 a few years back (eBay auction from private seller), really nicely made and perfect for my small benchtop machine.
I bought the “cheap” one the same as yours and experienced similar issues. Also it’s almost useless set at an angle as it’s just not rigid enough. But it still works sort of ok if I’m careful.
I think the general consensus is you need to sell a kidney and a small amount of your liver for a Vertex one. Theyre good dont get me wrong,but for a hobbyist theyre crucifyingly expensive
I bought a 80mm from India for super cheap and I took it apart straight out of the box and cleaned it well, I was expecting JUNK .. Turned out to be great ! ya, Just never know these days with over the pond tooling .
You are wasting your time. Open it up and look at the worm and gear. You will never get accuracy from it. Mine has as much as +/- 3 degrees after the backlash is taken up. I bought Sherline (with stepper motor). No more issues.
I'd love to see you upgrade to a larger lathe. I went from a mini like you have to a Bolton BT1030a benchtop and then finally got a Smithy 14x40 which I use for gunsmithing. Life is much easier when you can hog through work.
Yes and no. I mean yes, you're right about a larger lathe helping. But I don't think it's good for the content necessarily. There's a real niche here on RUclips for content creators showing how they work with (and around) small, low cost tools. I've seen more than one successful creator upgrade their shop and lose their foothold in that niche.
Years ago I got the cheaper version of this. Calling it hot garbage would be a kindness. Yours is in much better shape than the junk I ended up with. I didn't return it because I didn't use it until after time ran out. I now use a Sherline rotary table. It's not perfect, but it is very usable and gets the job done. The only issue I have is the locking mechanism is fiddly and could be improved, but accuracy is top notch.
@@jaro6985 Weirdly it feels a LOT more solid and stable. It was designed for a light machine so there is nothing there it does not need. I got it at 20% off. Sherline does a 20% deal every month on something.
Hmmm ... I bought a 75mm rotary table - an RT-1 - for a job in a fctory where I was making up cable loomsand I gotsick of being "screwdrivered"; I made up some plates whuch I mounted to the RT and I fitted M12 sensor sockets and ecomate connectors to take the plugs - no more screwwsdriver injuries! I have since moved onfrom the factory job and I am now in the process of making a rotary welding table using hobby gearhead motrord and a toothed belt to drive the RT; my variable PSU is my variable speed drive - its only a few hundred mA. I found the backlash a little worrying, but its new job, this won't be a problem. I'll be using it mainly for small pipe welding jobs.
Buddy, how can you complain about poor-quality equipment if you are not able to properly install the blank in the cartridge? 16:43, the workpiece is dangling in the sponges..
Lol, that's why I stick with 1.5-5ton machinery with 300+ mm on each axis. So I can put cheap $150, 110kg rotary table on, which originally was $5000 and didn't come from China.
![Tee Grizzley - Blow for Blow (feat. J. Cole) [Official Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/wNLN5xsx5dc/mqdefault.jpg)
Should go without saying #notsponsored and I cant imagine they'd want to after this video. Cheers
These tables and other similarly priced items seem to be made in India rather than China; not that it matters much, they still have the same variations in Quality Assurance™ - variations which range from 'merely cosmetic defects but otherwise ok' to just outright roughly manufactured, poorly designed or made, and/or downright unusable.
But the silver lining? If this can be taken apart and all the flaws in the mechanism fixed up or replaced with well-made shop-made parts, as well as other quality of life improvements, not only does one get a reliable quality tool to use while skipping all the other troublesome and expensive manufacturing steps (in contrast to making the whole thing from scratch) but also learn how it works and how to fix or remake things if something else in it breaks, or a part has to be made for a similar tool.
It has always been the case that anything that is normally expensive being this cheap, or in this case, 'cheaply made' has to be treated like a 'kit' or a 'project' that will almost always need to be worked and re-worked, torn down to bits and rebuilt better than before.
Plus, you get to make a rebuild video.
@@asakayosapro
30 years ago I worked in a pattern shop and a friend (also machinist & pattern maker with 20+ years experience at the time) took me over to Tree Machine in Racine Wisconsin to meet one of his friends and look around.
Even though they had foundries in the immediate area, it was still cheaper to buy from China. But the irons they got would have things like ball bearings in it, which makes it hard to machine at a production rate.
They ended up just buying whole machines from China, tearing them down, redoing the ways, replacing screws with roller bearings, and installing their brand of CNC.
I've watched a few of those manufacturing videos from Pakistan and the end products went into "Made in China" packaging !
I try to buy good second hand stuff, but sometimes you have to go for the Far East option, then I treat it as a "kit of parts" that's gonna need some fettling ?
That’s why I bought the vertex rotary table and dividing head - the tool master stuff can be a bit hit and miss .
@@ianbertenshaw4350 I ordered the 6" Vertex today myself but still have no idea where it is made, I've seen a few video's with it being used and one with a tear down and they seemed impressed with it.
I have Vertex rotary table. It is probably a mid price point and has suited what I do. It has a 90/1 drive ratio which gives better resolution but takes alot of cranking to get there 😁. Fitted with dividing plates I have produced great gears and other exciting stuff.
The only downside is it is not tilting but I can live with that but it can be mounted vertically & horizontally. It needed stripping and cleaning before first use but I tend to expect that with any tool and satisfys my craving to take stuff apart to see how they work 🤪.
I have the matching tailstock and that has proved invaluable to provide rigidity on longer projects and when using mandrels.
For most things, made in quality: India
I have the same rotary table and have had all the same issues, poor design, not rigid at all, would not recommend
Maybe you already caught it but at the end when you were facing the top of your part in the 3 jar chuck it tweaked over some in the chuck. You can see the gap between the chuck face and the part and it's still there when you have it tilted. That kind of stuff just frustrates when so much time is involved. Great job and thanks for all of the content!
I’ve scrapped many parts that way
This! That time lapse camera made it stand out like a sore thumb. I have gambled on some cheap tools (as we all have) because I needed something quick and cheap, or knew it was only to get me through one job, and it is super frustrating when the quality is so poor that it literally cannot be used without breaking end mills and scrapping parts. Thanks for another great video.
Yeah, at 16:43 you can see it kick over by a good amount
@@canonicaltom clamped on the threads only with the nose of the jaws
@dieselwelds Those 3 jar Chuck's are marvelous things aren't they, you can keep pickled onions in one jar, fingernail clippings in another jar and grandmas ashes in the third jar. Superb.
Gday, frustrating when this happens, I brought the 8” vertex RT and super happy, mate of mine brought the 6” vertex and can’t fault that either, Taiwanese made is the way to go I think mate, cheers
Agree, my 4" vertex has been great.
I have a version from RDG in the UK; looks identical. The T slots are not even on centre or 90° to each other on mine. Absolute garbage. Had the same issue with the lock screw too.
RDG and Chronos sell a lot of this cheap crap unfortunately.
Well, that's not good. Spending more money hoping for better quality and then this happens :(
My reply from 5 hours ago has gone? OK, rinse and repeat:
It turns out that the construction of this particular device leaves a lot to be desired, which reminds me of my old crappy rotary table. But, you can fix it I think.
Unscrew the hex bolt from the bottom of the table spindle, and put a longer old bolt in there, so that you can tap or push the table out of the bearing. You will see that only the bottom has a bearing, and the top of the table has none.
I have changed this lousy construction by turning a recess in the housing about 2mm deep, into which the underside of the table fits accurately. The housing just fitted in my 4 jaw chuck. I also removed a few tenths of a mm from the bottom of the table, now it runs true. The axis of the table has been shortened slightly (2 mm and a bit), so that the table can sink 2 mm into the recess. I tightened the hex bolt until the underside of the table nearly touches the bottom of the recess. The table is now also supported at the top by the recess, which improves the rigidity enormously and now it turns much more accurately.
Yeah sorry about that, it must have gotten flagged by the spam filter. Great advice. Cheers
I’ve gotten it apart and I can see exactly how you have gone about this. Might require a few late nights but I might and go about this in a similar way
@@artisanmakes
Would be great if you made a video of your approach.
I have the Vevor 100mm version (AU$118) , it looks almost identical casting wise , but def has holes in different places and other minor changes .
People don't understand that businesses in continental china seem to share a lot of tooling with eachother. You can see products using the same parts coming out of opposite ends of the country. And often it'd make no sense for the parts to have came out of the same factory.
The vevor just has a thumb screw for the lock, so not as much force, does it still tilt upwards like his did?
From machinery warehouse, they just buy the same $130 unit from china and rebadge it and sell for $220.
That price difference gives them a bit of profit and covers the cost of units being returned and refunded because it is chinese crud.
The "returns and bargains" section out the rear often has some good bargains. I used to live just up the road, and dropped in periodically to see what I could score.
Hats off for the non-click-baity title 👍
It would be pretty interesting if you took a hard look at it and made mods and repairs necessary to make this one the rotary table of your dreams.
@@real_mikkim At least its cheap and keeps us out of the pubs at night. I'm doing a variant on the theme ... turning a made in INDIA 4" X 7.3" VEVOR Cross Slide Table into a milling attachment for my 70 year old Craftsman 12-24 lathe. So far it looks like the Indian made crap is somewhat better than that made by the Chinese.
@@real_mikkim Oh Yeah ... You win at Internet -hobby machinist division today!
I worked 40 years as a toolmaker and design engineer at Ford UK Product Development, and I loved the rotary table we had in our workshop. For many years, we had no hoist, and the dividing head was too heavy to be easily moved by one person. But most of all, the rotary table is so simple and quick to use if you just needed half a dozen indexed holes that you could click into the marked indents. It looked like you were using a multitoothed rose bit to cut the chamfer. My experience is they try their very hardest to chatter and leave a poor surface finish. I use Chinese cheep-as-chips single edged countersinks in my home shop and at the Menz Shed, and so long as you keep the speed down they do a lovely job and last for ages. I have even seen Kurtis from Cutting Edge Engineering Australia use one to machine wide chamfers on parts, although he would be using high quality, and expensive, tooling. This is the first of your videos I have watched, and I'll be subscribing for sure.
And here i am, using a spot drill
I bought basically the same from amazon here in the US (about 120 USD), and ran into the exact same issues. Still need to tear it down and modify/rebuild it, but i got it planning on having to basically treat it as a raw casting kit.
Hello Artisan,
I have been following your channel very closely for some time now and have been inspired to come up with interesting solutions when implementing my own projects.
Since owning my own milling machine, which is now three and a half years, I am aware that all this is not a low budget hobby.
I find it very positive that you also present and test inexpensive tools and show possibilities for modification.
To be able to realize my own projects I had to buy various accessories for my milling machine over the last years. Sometimes it es also in Germany quite difficult to find products in the right cost range. My general experience is not to save money on equipment even if you have a small budget. With a dividing head in this price range, I don't think you can expect the quality reserves that you need for long-term precise work.
This video shows this very clearly.
Given the variety of products, it has become very difficult to find sufficiently good and precise quality for an acceptable price. If in doubt, I think it is better to spend a little more and buy a product that is stable, precise and reliable.
With good tools, work is simply more enjoyable and better results are achieved.
Thank you for the honest product presentation.
Please keep up the good work.
With kind Regards form my Workshop in Germany
The major advantage you have in Germany is that you still have a huge manufacturing base. There will always be a pretty good supply of used, but high quality machine tools and accessories easily available to you. Here in the UK we are better off than Australia, but it is nothing like as easy these days to pick up good quality used accessories. Most of them, particularly dividing heads and rotary tables suitable for a home workshop are at their end of life.
Mmmmmm... new crinkly plastic.... (well, something about it had to be good!)
I about spit out my coffee when I saw the effects of that locking screw, that is absurd, and such an easy manufacturing and design fix.
We use worm gears a lot in astronomy, many times performance can be drastically improved by lapping the gears. Also setting backlash settings too tight will cause binding especially if worm gear or the ring gear are not concentric
Yes. I did that, just cleaned up the edges n polished them. Felt good but theres no adjusting the backlash in these. At least not mine 3 inch from India
I would agree with the comments made below re the Vertex brand. I have always had great success with their products. Old saying - "The sweetness of quality is remembered long after the pain of price is forgotten". Good luck mate!
That was a good one, Rob.👍
The version I heard and always stuck with me was "Pay once, cry once."
Biggest mistake I made was buying a Sieg, the money could have been far better spent on a proper quality mill.
Once more this makes just one thing clear: no matter what you buy and from which brand you buy: it is about the expected QC, not so much about where the factory is located.
I've been using a rotary table for years but just bought a dividing head for cutting axle splines and excited to use it for the first time today!
Years ago I bought one that looks identical - it is one true piece of crap - useless for any kind of precision work.
Gotta love a video with a title like that! I’m in for the ride 🙂
I bought a non tilting rotary table from Qtech tools who claim to be an Australian company for $150. Wish i had saved my money because it is a piece of crap! it looks good on the outside and that's about it. i mounted a piece of mild steel to open up a curved slot (cutter diameter was less than the slot) with a light cut the end mill grabbed and spun the table (10/15mm) and painted a racing stripe in my jocks. Nun the less i finished with a hand file and wont use it again until i strip it down and assess the issues. Qtech had very poor customer service, I won't buy from them again!! Great video keep up the good work. Ps. i haven't forgotten that gearbox casting you did a while back.
These cheap rotary tables actually have their uses , you can use them to make precision (sort of) specialty fixtures you want to leave set up permanently! As someone that has spent thousands of dollars on rotary tables I can say it’s a lot easier to handle not having access to a cheap one rather then that really expensive RT you trust with tight tolerance work!
I would look for a rotary table with a center taper. It will have much larger bearings to fit the taper, plus the taper is super useful.
Yea i bought a cheap small 3" one of Amazon and it's really cheaply made. But it's not the tilting variety. I did buy one of those also previously but those are even worse as nothing is square and accuracy is way off. That's also the case for the fixed one but to a lesser degree but still far from being anywhere close to a precision tool.
It does work OK for my purposes since my machining is done strictly as a hobby but I'm still going to invest in a higher quality one at some point. I've just been procrastinating that for a while since I don't end up needing to use the rotary table that often, but when I do it's frustrating sometimes.
Although the rotary plate on it is quite flat, within less than a thou over all sides. After disassembling, cleaning, deburring sharp edges and putting new grease it operated much smoother. The only issue is that there is a bit of lift when machining, that's what makes it frustrating and the other frustrating part I've found is that the chucks I've bought for it are nowhere near accurate enough, so these issues compound on one another.
Altogether i can still make ok parts on them but they are quite a bit off from the accuracy i'd like even just for hobby work.
I bought the same one a few months ago.
It's Awesome after a few little mods and about 6-7hrs of Black Dog-inspiring work.
I had to fully dismantle to clean out all the swarf from manufacturing. The operation was rough as guts!
Add a Brass 'Race' between the Face Plate/Body.
Debur and re-Index the Worm Gear before it sheared the teeth off its mate, which was also re-indexed.
Added a sealed bearing to either side of the Hand Wheel.
I would also Slot one of the Mounting Holes, as the unit won't sit parallel to your Table.
Add a Spring under that cute lil Table Lock Bolt before it vibrates out and shoots your neighbor.
Nipping this Bolt up to drag helps reduce Harmonics.
However, you can get the s**Ts, coupled with an optimum RPM for the Spindle around 3000+ to take advantage of the Chatter.
The table practically revolves itself!
Thanks. Might have saved me a lot of grief.
Yeah, HAFCO aren't always the cheapest option out there. Always a good idea to shop around.
😮😮 Has the hacksaw's time run up?
Just drill the chuck to direct mount to the rotary....
I've got the same rotary table, and the same issues as you have. The little thumb locking screw has a taper which is supposed to lock the table via an angled groove in the table, which tends to lift the table upwards. I stripped mine down hoping to machine a better groove to apply downwards pressure but there isn't enough metal to do it!!!
Could you drill and tap another hole in a slightly lower location to use the original locking screw?
@@ferrumignis no because there is not enough metal, the rotating table is very shallow in the main body. The worm and wheel take up most of the space. A downward clamping force is needed,but it might stop rotation! Can't win really!
The Vertex has locks close to what you made, but two on each side. The Vertex 110mm looks better, but is about 465 Euro...😮💨
can we not utilize most of the bits on this unit and develop a better one yourself? you have a great guide?
Yeah like most chinese stuff you need to think of it like a kit of spare parts that might work well... after you do heaps of rebuilding and mods to it.
Quality. At least this piece doesn't reek of it.
I have it also . It's crap and useless
Thanks for the review. I had been considering getting one of these off and on for a few years and now I have a lot more info, sadly to the negative.
I still really like the look of the scraped base of your vise. No one else I've seen has that
Have you stripped it down and cleaned the inside yet ? I bought an identical RT and it felt gritty . When stripped it was full of grease and casting sand making an excellent grinding paste ! It's now much smoother and feels better in use. I certainly wouldn't recommend this RT to any one. Having said that it has been useful for my intended uses.
I have the same table. (different brand but same table)
I ran into all the same problems but there's solutions, as you have illustrated. I just put brass inserts into my stops or locks as I was afraid the stock hardware would gouge the surfaces, making it that much more difficult to get accuracy & precision over time. I also adjusted the pointer on the tilt but you should always indicate with something better if you need accuracy.
It's not terrible but I think I got it for 75 or 80 bucks about five years ago so I'm not nearly as disappointed.
Sometimes you pay 2x the price and get 10x the tool. Not in this case, obviously.
I always seem to run into having tooling not quite big enough for the next project. I bought an 8" Vertex H/V rotary table. It seems quite OK except it only has 3 T slots. By the time I get a part clamped in place, the useful area is down to around 6". I cast an 11" disc of aluminum and mounted it to the RT. With 8 T slots it makes the table much more useful. I have an 8" chuck that thru bolts to the RT but makes it too heavy for my old body to move as one piece. I have the set of indexing plates and footstock but rarely use them.
Interesting. I have just come across your video which has exactly the same issues I had. I bought the same size rotary table but without the tilt function and it too wobbled in exactly the same way. I did not want to spend ages re-machining surfaces so the underside of the top part fitted flush with the nicely ground surface. I checked and the table was nice and concentric and after a lot of thought decided to fit 4 M5 brass grub screws with flat tops inserted through from the top held in place with thread lock. I could then adjust the wobble until there was none but at the same time there was not too much drag. I too had problems with the poor fit of the worm against the gear but in my case there was no way to adjust it. The inside of mine was filled with grinding dust and it needed a good clean. It is a shame that someone went almost all the way to make a reasonable tool but tried too hard to do it cheaply. Mine is workable but disappointing. Not aware that there is an alternative in the 100mm size. John
I did modify a 100mm chuck by drilling 6.5mm through-holes from the face to the back and adding recesses to the face for socket head screws. I am using 1/4-20 bolts, but M6 is fine as well. my t-nuts are 3/8-16 threaded, but I have tons of reducer bushings from the photo/video business, so the bolts thread easily into the t-nuts. this allows me to mount the chuck straight onto the mill table without using strap clamps, as well as straight to my rotary table... no backplates necessary.
Only a few seconds in and already I'm impressed. That looked like a Rolson penknife....and he managed to cut something with the blade!
Bit of a let down, but then again I suppose if you are not buying high end precision gear, you have to accept that will happen occasionally. But overall for the home shop, this sort of price bracket is still the way to go and overall far better value for money spent. Hopefully your new clamp will prove to do the job and make it a useful tool going forward.
I wanted to make a backplate for my rotary table. I liked your idea of bolting the backplate to rotary table for machining OD.
I have a 6" India make table that I got for about $150. It has 72:1 ratio and comes with indexing plates. It also has the clamps that you had to make.
Overall I think it is a good product for that price.
Thank for the video, as always you provided great content.
You're competency seems to be well beyond the level of machines and budget you're working with.
Watching and learning you techniques as you "bootstrap" with cheep "Chinese quality" machines and tools into a capable shop is really helpful.
I also bought a rotary index, thinking I could use it as a rotary table. But my machine is also limited in it's Z.
Great advice, I'm sorry the rotary table won't likely have much future use. I'll look now to see if you have a Patron site I can join and help offset your cost, you certainly saved me from wasting money on one of these tilting rotary tables. Thanks again.
Love your videos. Every once in a while, you might want to do a video on some of what you actually make. We'd love to see what you do when you aren't machining the machines that you use to machine what you actually make.
"Very expensive spinny things that almost do the same thing" sounds like it could be an alternative name for the sport/discipline of hobby machining. The hobby includes periodic visits from the Hindsight Fairy who inevitably either says, "Should have spent more money to get the good one," and, "OOh, you lashed out and bought the good one. How often you reckon you'll use it?"
The Hindsight Fairy is an idiot, and I drown out its unsolicited feedback by turning bar stock into artefacts.
i have the shop fox rotary table, its around the same size and price, but it has not tilting, so its much more stable
That sucks. I wonder if full rebuild could find issues and fix them.
I have one, tried fixing it myself. No. It needs melted down. What it would take to fix it would cost more than buying a good one. That is what I did. Got a good one.
@@ajosepi1976 Hmm too bad. Oh well.
You shouldn't have to, but i'm sure you could fix it, maybe a shim to take up the slack or shorten the shaft etc..
I have one. The gear is out of round so if you shim it it stops rotating. His may be better, but the one I got was totally not fixable.
16:43 part moved in the chuck errrr
Yeah looks like it
There skateboard bearings what did you expect? You need those. 0.0001 tolerance bearings, but a way to use one on top. My "anti backlash bolt" doesn't even go in straight, basically at 7 o'clock looking at noon instead 1.
13:42 That's it the dreaded "Tear it down" phrase.
Tear it down means to “demolish” it.
If your going to clean and rebuild something, then bloody well say so.
All credibility has now gone.
Was shopping these and you saved me troubles, thanks
For a long time I earned good money for fixing and tuning cheap tools. They became a bit more expensive but not anything as close a the professional solutions. Nowadays it doesn't make any sense, because the Chinese have become way better in copying...
Here's a wild and radical idea, why not buy tooling that DOESN'T come from China ?
SO... my take away from this.
Damn nice fixes for what you had, the item itself should be melted down then delivered, at high speed, to the vendor with your complaints engraved on the outside of the blob.
Got the same one different name (Canada) was all but useless out of the box. Tear down, CLEAN, lube. useable but did not expect a lot for the price and needed it for ONE job at the time and with a little finess did the job great
You go through a lot of explaining of trying to justify why you bought this rotary table. Coming from a metal fabricator, it's a tool you need, so just get it. This is coming from a guy that has 6 angle grinders and 8 hand drills. 😁
That's what happens when you buy that cheap import Chinese junk instead of a good American made rotary table
Ótima apresentação do produto, é lamentável obter a aquisição de um produto de baixa qualidade, notei que esse produto irá resultar na Fabricacao de peças imprecisas.
I bought it about three years ago and got the same results. It must be modified or thrown away. The use of a ball bearing is completely unsatisfactory. After modifications, it is partially usable, but not for precision milling.
Nice video, easy to enjoy. Now, where is the video where you fix this rotary table and make it the best in the world? 😄
I have the same! you should never buy this .. on the second use. the inner gear broke!!. it's a shame you didn't dismantle everything to show how badly it's built inside...
Thinkingvof buying one just to convert into a welding positioner....
Where oh where did you find that tooth cutter disc for your mill ?. None of the places I look have anything like it.
You might find the locking screw is not pointed and is actually winding the plate over.
Rebuild it and fix the dumpy parts. There are several parts there you can reuse that are hard to make but the base and innards are chunky and you can solve the cheap Chineasium issues.
The sound of the plastic wrapper was more pronounced than the initial applause of the video. 😆
Recommend vertex rotary tables. They're not the best but the 100mm one I got from General Tools in Adelaide has been very good. (Edit) Vertex 6" tilting rotary table is ~$1600 🙀
Haha, yeah funny enough a $1600 rotary table is better quality than a $130 ebay unit. 😁
@@wizrom3046 I bought Vertex HV-4. Cost me around $365 on sale. No tilt function, but very decent quality, usable and accurate out of the box.
@@HM-Projects I managed to pick up a new HV04 with dividing plates for £120 a few years back (eBay auction from private seller), really nicely made and perfect for my small benchtop machine.
This could be the perfect starter for a rotary welding table. Just a thought.
Please send your dealer in Pakistan or what app contact link, I will wait for your feedback
It was an instructive video, thank you!
It helps some people not to spend money on such a device.
I only have one suggestion. Rebuild that Rotary Table.
I bought the “cheap” one the same as yours and experienced similar issues.
Also it’s almost useless set at an angle as it’s just not rigid enough.
But it still works sort of ok if I’m careful.
Dear Guy
It Wasn't better to buy a complete Lathe Machine?
I am sure in no time you’ll be good enough toolmaker to build your own rotary table, much better.
Thanks 4 the video and ur recommendation is appreciated
Is there a combination dividing head/rotary table made by anyone?
bad tool definetly , thx for sharing
I think the general consensus is you need to sell a kidney and a small amount of your liver for a Vertex one. Theyre good dont get me wrong,but for a hobbyist theyre crucifyingly expensive
idve just returned it. Its a real shame they peddle crap like this.
Why did you use an angle grinder, where is your hack saw???????
Hah, glad I wasn't the only one that noticed!
FYI your a machinist you modify it you improve it
the other model table is much better. :)
I bought a 80mm from India for super cheap and I took it apart straight out of the box and cleaned it well, I was expecting JUNK .. Turned out to be great ! ya, Just never know these days with over the pond tooling .
I NEED price and how to order it please?
Mine has the same issue with lock screw.
You are wasting your time. Open it up and look at the worm and gear. You will never get accuracy from it. Mine has as much as +/- 3 degrees after the backlash is taken up. I bought Sherline (with stepper motor). No more issues.
I’ve heard good things about the sherline model.
I'd love to see you upgrade to a larger lathe. I went from a mini like you have to a Bolton BT1030a benchtop and then finally got a Smithy 14x40 which I use for gunsmithing. Life is much easier when you can hog through work.
Yes and no. I mean yes, you're right about a larger lathe helping. But I don't think it's good for the content necessarily. There's a real niche here on RUclips for content creators showing how they work with (and around) small, low cost tools. I've seen more than one successful creator upgrade their shop and lose their foothold in that niche.
Years ago I got the cheaper version of this. Calling it hot garbage would be a kindness. Yours is in much better shape than the junk I ended up with. I didn't return it because I didn't use it until after time ran out. I now use a Sherline rotary table. It's not perfect, but it is very usable and gets the job done. The only issue I have is the locking mechanism is fiddly and could be improved, but accuracy is top notch.
Looks like the Sherline is $300 plus another $120 for the tilting, not that bad. Not as beefy though.
@@jaro6985 Weirdly it feels a LOT more solid and stable. It was designed for a light machine so there is nothing there it does not need. I got it at 20% off. Sherline does a 20% deal every month on something.
Hmmm ... I bought a 75mm rotary table - an RT-1 - for a job in a fctory where I was making up cable loomsand I gotsick of being "screwdrivered"; I made up some plates whuch I mounted to the RT and I fitted M12 sensor sockets and ecomate connectors to take the plugs - no more screwwsdriver injuries!
I have since moved onfrom the factory job and I am now in the process of making a rotary welding table using hobby gearhead motrord and a toothed belt to drive the RT; my variable PSU is my variable speed drive - its only a few hundred mA. I found the backlash a little worrying, but its new job, this won't be a problem.
I'll be using it mainly for small pipe welding jobs.
Buddy, how can you complain about poor-quality equipment if you are not able to properly install the blank in the cartridge? 16:43, the workpiece is dangling in the sponges..
Like we all haven’t made silly mistakes before.
Heyyyy, that's a nice box! 😂
Lol, that's why I stick with 1.5-5ton machinery with 300+ mm on each axis.
So I can put cheap $150, 110kg rotary table on, which originally was $5000 and didn't come from China.