cutting gears

[Rickabilly]

Back when I was pushed for workshop space I decided I wanted both a horizontal and vertical mill, but as they were really pricey I settled for a Mill/drill, then a little later it hit me, old universal horizontal mills are cheap and really don't take up much more room than a Mill/Drill as the mill/drill usually sits on a heavy bench any way, and Bridgeport or clone vertical milling heads are reasonably priced, so I found an old, really rough, BP clone milling head and rebuilt it, then mounted it onto the overarm of the horizontal mill, the result a "Frankenmill" which could really do it all, total price was about $500 and it took up about 1 and a 1/2 times the room of the mill/drill, but the setup was very rigid and twice the size of any mill/drill.
Also, I have a standard setup on my mill, I always keep a rotary table bolted vertically on the extreme left of the table, and a vise on the extreme right, they balance each other out so don't cause too much extra wear, in addition I have room in between for a Chuck, indexer or fixture to be bolted directly down to the table , and as the vise can be used to clamp a tailstock fixture I often use the rotary table as an indexing head as well without the need to remove the vise, as my horizontal/vertical mill is a proper industrial universal mill, it was designed with a indexing head drive under the table which is able to engage with the power feed mechanisim, I am in the process of creating the required gear train, I am considering using a QC gearbox off of a lathe lead screw to give a load of ratios without change gears, but as yet I've not found one to suit my budget, it could be a really small one and I'm not fussed about brands or origin at all, as long as it does the job.
Best Regards
Rick