Quote Originally Posted by Neale View Post
I'm used to a lathe where the cross-slide dial is calibrated in actual movement. Baffled the whatsits out of me the first time I used a machine calibrated in "diameter" instead - couldn't work out why I kept going through a measure/cut/measure/oh bugger cycle... Still, if it's anything like my mill with DRO, I can't remember when I actually read anything off a dial!
Is the lathe metric or imperial, and can you tell me how it manages screw-cutting of the opposite system - is there a 127T gear in there, or somesuch?
I'm new to lathes (and milling machines) so still not sure about it all. All I thought was that the DRO would read the same as the handwheel dial, if the handwheel dial is showing diameter change and the DRO is showing raduis thyen all's good, however it looked to the naked eye that the cross slide was moving 1mm when the handwheel said 1mm but the DRO only said 0.5mm! I'lll set the DTI on it this morning and measure just to set my mind at rest.

Not tried screw cutting yet but it can apparently cut both metric (its a metric machine) and Imperial. Yes it has a 127 tooth gear plus a lot of others spare. I'll take some more photos of the gears it comes with and probably do a video of it cutting. Played with the speeds and feeds yesterday and got a nice finish so with more practice and reading up (I've got "The Amature's Lathe" and "Screwcutting in the Lathe" books so time for some bed time reading I think!) I think it's got a 32/85/100 combination currently fitted but not many of the gears are marked up (one more job on the list of things to do!)

Has anyone got any good recomendations for working out speeds and feeds, I'm sure I saw a post somewhere...will have a trawl at lunchtime.