x-axis dro for my vintage lathe.

**schor** · Oct 27, 2017, 06:37 AM

Thanks for the comment.

I think I have both wear on the screw and on the nut. I'll have to see if I can measure the wear on the screw one day.

**olderdan** · Oct 27, 2017, 12:22 PM

My SB lathe is about the same age as yours and I made a new crosslide acme screw and nut for it, an easy way too check wear is to lock the slide and measure the backlash on the feed dial at 1 inch intervals. Assuming that wear on the nut will be more of a constant than on the screw it will probably tell you that the worst area is between the C/L and about 2.5 inches out where most work is done and so the variation would be wear on the screw, this was true in my case.
However as you have done a super job of fitting a DRO you have made backlash irrelevant and given your lathe a better than new accuracy.
The reason I did not fit DRO to my lathe is that I do a lot of milling with it and so backlash is something I needed to reduce is much as possible.

**schor** · Apr 2, 2018, 08:02 PM

Originally Posted by olderdan

My SB lathe is about the same age as yours and I made a new crosslide acme screw and nut for it, an easy way too check wear is to lock the slide and measure the backlash on the feed dial at 1 inch intervals. Assuming that wear on the nut will be more of a constant than on the screw it will probably tell you that the worst area is between the C/L and about 2.5 inches out where most work is done and so the variation would be wear on the screw, this was true in my case.
However as you have done a super job of fitting a DRO you have made backlash irrelevant and given your lathe a better than new accuracy.
The reason I did not fit DRO to my lathe is that I do a lot of milling with it and so backlash is something I needed to reduce is much as possible.

Thanks for the comment. The dro works very well and I can hit my mark pretty much all the time now.

**bigtrev8xl** · Jul 27, 2018, 01:27 AM

Good stuff, apart from the annoying background music...Thanks

**Toolmaker51** · Nov 14, 2018, 07:04 PM

Hard to beat a DRO. Adding quick change tools can really show the advantages, worn lead screw or not. A big temptation, adding to a compound!
A recommendation I offer is verifying by other than combination of leadscrew-dial-DRO. On a lathe of that size, should think 4 or 5 inches with 1-2-3 blocks or comparable standard and a test indicator. Simple as laying a bar over ways and using carriage to get indicator tip 'in and out' of contact with chosen standard.
DRO's accuracy relate to attaining 2 planes of square and level travel in accordance with slide being monitored; minimizing sine error(s).