lathe experts

[sgimbel]

I'm looking at a Jet lathe. Some have "indexing" heads. Is that something I'll use on pens etc? The lathe I have now doesn't have a indexing head and I'm none the worse for wear. What does an "indexing" head do?

[lucky788scroller]

Indexing is something you CAN use on pens.Its not a necessity, but its definatly something worth the few extra dollars to have. If you ever decide to add fluting to a turning its almost a must have. Its also very useful for when you try making a big spiral turning. Basically it has set places for indexing your turning, holding it at a certain place,and you can always know exactly where a certain feature starts in your shaping, and can return to it time and time again, or go in amounts of degrees and index at another point, like if you want to create an octagon section in your turning,or a hexagon, ect. Its hard to describe, but I'm sure theres tons of info online teaching many cool techniques. If your sole purpose is going to be to just crank out pens, no, its not a necessity, but if the feature wont break the bank, get it, because otherwise you may regret it when you get hooked on turning more.

[William Young]

Scott.

I am certainly no lathe expert but hopefully I can help a little with this.

Indexing is a nice feature. Once having it you wouldn't want t be without it.
On the Jet lathe like I have it is incorporated into the headlock feature.
Here are just a couple examples of what I have used mine for to get dead on evenly spaced embelishments on turnings. It eliminates all the guess work and careful measuring required if doing it without the indexing feature .
W.Y.



On the backs of mirrors



And on the ends of bottle stoppers.





Those items brought double the price of plain ordinary ones that were not dressed up like that.