While still set up for making washout plugs and having looked through a few of my other kits to see if I need any more at some point (which I do). I decided to see how many I could make in 45 minutes.

I was pleased and a little surprised that I managed to make a dozen. Now compared to commercial CNC machined offerings that would be quite pitiful.

However when you consider that you have to turn the spigot on each end of the bar, then transfer it to the spin indexer to mill the square section. Then back to the lathe for parting off and turning the next spigot.

When using a collet block the work has to be backed out quite a long way to clear the cutter and the machine switched off to remove risk of injury while indexing the collet block. My collet blocks (ER25) are quite nose heavy due to the big collet nut on the end. This makes it essential to make sure that you have it pressed flat in the vice before tightening it. If you relax that pressure for the slightest instant before the vice grips it will tilt forward and throw the job out of kilter.

With the spin indexer you can literally move the cutter a couple of mm away from the work piece and unscrew the lock, then remove the indexing pin before rotating to the next index position, with your hands well clear of the cutter. Which means that not only do you not have to make many turns of the hand wheel to clear the workpiece, but you can also leave the machine running during reindexing and that saves so much time.