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.

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 rocking bearings bolted to base plate and locking pin fitted.