I've had an interest in ornamental turning on and off for many years, I even built a 2 part geometric chuck and have used it for demonstrations. The following images show my recent efforts, this time with Rose Turning

First efforts using my BCA jig mill as a cutter, a rotating indexer with a piece of hexagonal stock as a rosette, a method described by Steve Ellis in the SOT Journal. The sample pieces are boxwood & yew.

Hooked by the interesting patterns that can be made with this setup, I decided to make a proper cutting frame based on the design at ornamentalroseengine.com (to whom thanks are due) and a rocking & pumping mandrell.

Finished cutting frame, mounted on a compound slide and utilising a Potts milling attachment for vertical adjustment.
Progress so far on the rocking headstock. A small lathe countershaft/motor mount provided the bearing housings after giving it the good news with an angle grinder & cut-off wheel. I removed the worn out ball bearings and turned up a pair of bronze bushes which will be more than adequate as rose engine mandrels don't turn that fast. The mandrell is 1" diameter with a Myford thread to take my chucks & collets.
Headstock and mandrel. It will be bolted to the box section below which will hold the rocking bearings.
Turning the division plate (hacked from 3/16" plate with my trusty angle grinder), the smaller disc will hold grub screws to lock the disc to the mandrel.
Lapping the rosette barrel for a sweet fit on the mandrel.
Trial assembly of mandrel, rosette barrel with phasing ring, & division plate.
Setup for drilling the division holes
Finished division plate, rows:- 2 x 180; 96, 72 & 60.
Originally I intended to mount the drive pulley on the rear of the mandrel, a better arangement is to have it between the bearings so when I came across an 8" x 3/8" disc of boilerplate in the scrap bin I decided to add this to the original division plate. The 3/8" thickness allowed for the belt groove and also a greater diameter for the division holes. Even with the increased diameter it was not possible to fit 360 holes of any reasonable size so a second row of 180 holes were drilled offset by half a hole to the first row. Further rows of 96, 72 & 60 holes were drilled. This may seem a bit of overkill but if I didn't have a good range of divisions Sod's Law would certainly indicate the need of them later. Another consideration is that by fitting a locking arrangement to the rocking headstock I would be able to use it as a simple OT lathe.
Trial assembly with dividing plate & rosette barrel with spacers & locking ring
Rear of mandrel showing pumping spring & tensioner.
Rosette phasing worm & wheel
Rocking trunnions & bearings (complete with 'vintage'grease cups!
Trial assembly with rocking bearings bolted to base plate and locking pin fitted.
Spring bracket & tension adjuster.
Rocking stop (3/8" x 40 tpi Left hand thread)
Just about there !, still have to make & fit the dividing detent for 'ordinary' ornamental turning....

Cutting rosettes here.... A few pattern pieces and 'things' here.....

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