A Handwheel Dial for the Mini-Lathe

摘要

Like many of the lathes on the market for the home machinist the Mini-lathe has no means of easily measuring the lengths of turned material. No doubt many users are quite content to make do with a rule measurement, but this restricts the potential that these little machines can be put to. Whilst I have seen many of the cheap digital callipers cannibalised and fitted to lathes to perform this function, there is a trade off in the amount of room that the attachments take up and I cannot help feeling that these 'additions' must get in the way at some point or other. Also, keeping coolant and debris from the workings of the calliper must also present some problems. When my friend started using his Warco version of the Mini-lathe in earnest, this measurement restriction started to be a real problem and it was not long before he popped the question about adapting the Myford design to fit the Warco.