Dovetail cutter???

[sheepherder]

Originally Posted by Olle

Ah, I usually call that the "head", and the "spindle" is on the lathe.

I should have said "quill".

Everything on this mill/lathe is crudely [Chinese] machined. One graduation of the 'quill' handwheel dial should be .040" according to the chart. But my dial indicator says .037".

But it's not the mill/quill I'm talking about. It's the dial calipers. The digital calipers is consistently .010" off in measurements under .100", compared to the mechanical calipers . Zeroing doesn't help. And I can't get consistent readings with the mechanical dial calipers. Starrett calipers.

Can't pin down the problem. The dial indicator method works pretty well for measuring the depth of cut, but trying to get a consistent measurement of say a front sight base is fairly unlikely.

[Olle]

Have you tried the Starrett with a standard, for example feeler gages? I have a Mitutoyo, and I try it with a known dimension now and then just to make sure that it's not out of whack. If it is, I'm sure that Starrett can recalibrate it for you.

I believe the small discrepancy in the dial setting could be due to the feed screw being metric. Seems like some older machines used metric feed screws, and for the US market they simply changed the dials to read the "closest standard equivalent". These are said to be a bit iffy sometimes, so if that's the case you may want to upgrade to true standard screws and dials.

[sheepherder]

Originally Posted by Olle

I believe the small discrepancy in the dial setting could be due to the feed screw being metric.

Or the threads being tight at one point and loose at another. Just another reason to buy American. Interestingly, the same 3in1 machine is sold by Harbor Freight, Grizzly, and Smithy with different nameplates and colors...

I have a short list of accessories I'd like to get for it from Grizzly; they import more accessories than the others...

Edit: Ha! Sears now sells the Grizzly 3in1 as well as Grizzly!!!

Here's the Harbor Freight [red] and Sears/Grizzly [green] 3in1 machines...