Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Gunsmithing Suggestions on hobby gunsmith lathe and milling machine!

Well boys, as you get older, your eyes play funny tricks with those tiny little dials on a lathe. Not only that, it makes up for wear and backlash in the lead screws.

CAFR,
How is a DRO easier to read than a Trav A Dial on a lathe for threading? Have you threaded a barrel or 3 with a DRO?
If you do this for money, why are you using a worn out machine?

Beeeeg Dials Senior.


Put some oil on those crossfeed screws and they will last forever.

Down boy... I don't have a trav a dial on my machine. DRO is just as easy to install and digits are easier to read than marks on a dial. My machines aren't worn out, either. When working in .001 tolerances, any machine with any wear at all will have a bit of backlash in the screws. The dials on my lathe crossfeed and compound are very small and can be difficult to read. I do quite well threading barrels, etc. just as I'm set up now. I just think a DRO would make my life a bit easier. Just sayin'. At any rate, goodshot was asking for suggestions for a "Hobby Gun Shop" lathe and mill. Perhaps we have gone a bit off the subject and are causing confusion, here.

It appears you would be better served painting weapons rather than using machinery.

I love the dro on my lathe. It is easy to count timing on a thread. My machine is variable speed, so I can feather in to the last bit of threads. I do have mag mount indicators that I can double check against, but for most of the work I do, the dro is an asset. I have yet to see it in the way.

i find the DRO handy when making parts from a drawing. It isnt for threading for sure!

I'm not sure why you think you can make any judgement about my skills without having seen my work, but if you want to be an a$$hole, your problem.

I may be an [bleep], but I have done a little bit of machining. When you are threading with your DRO you must have your tool upside down and threading to the right? So now you are threading to a shoulder. Do you adjust your compound or do you just plunge cut your threads?

I agree with the comments regarding DRO's sometimes getting in the way. I have always used TRAK DRO's on lathe and mills, they utilize a rotary encoder like a Trav-a-dial. No glass scale to get in the way, far less troublesome than glass scaled DRO's as long as you maintain them. Clean and change wiper(s) about once a year. As regards threading with a DRO I don't understand the negative comments, what's the difference if the cross slide zero is set on a dial or a DRO display? The tool is fed in with the compound and withdrawn at the end of the cut by visual observation. What's not to like about the DRO? I thread up to a shoulder both ways, conventional feeding up to the shoulder and mounting the tool upside down and feeding away from the shoulder. BTW, I also bore on the "back side" of a blind hole, feeding out of the hole running the lathe in reverse with the compound set to the left rather than the right. Takes a little getting used to but saves a lot of stress & worry about running into the bottom of the hole. Try it, you'll like it!

I thread upside down and backwards using the compound. I never said that I needed the DRO for threading, but I use the lathe for more than threading and I still think that a DRO would be beneficial. If you don't, that's fine. Just leave your thoughts about how I should be making a living out of the discussion.

Pretty thin skinned to be on the fire. DROs are great, just not for threading.

Back to lathes: Any one of them is better than not having one, some are just better than others. Do your research.

Not to sound ignorant but there are no dumb questions. What is the DRO?

Movement on the lathe is controlled by mechanical items, ie the feed screws and respective nuts. Usually these items are square type threading, ACME. The dials on the crossfeed and compound have numbers on them, typically in 0.001" marks.

The DRO is a set of instrumentation that tracks actual movements on the lathe and presents it to the operator on a hexidecimal display system. So one sees actual movements of the crossfeed and the horizontal feeds of the lathe on the display system, whatever type of display technology you bought.

The nuts and acme shafts get worn over time, and develop backlash, ie slop. One can get around such by going past the position you desire with the control dials, and then coming back to put a touch in the mechanisms, ie no slack in that direction. Of course, one has to keep track of how cutting pressure is applied to these things to keep the nut/acme interface in contact. Especially true if one is using a mill adapter on the lathe.

DRO's, direct read outs, digital read outs, are fairly expensive but some really like them. Way too expensive for me and my old machine. With a DRO you watch the display for critical movements rather than watching a dial indicator or manually controlling the control dials.

You might just google or bing........ "lathe DRO" to see some pictures and links to peruse if you so desire.

Digital Read Out

Thanks redz06. Always room to learn new stuff. Technology has come a long way since I left the tool room.