Any word yet?

[Ninehostages]

A "Thou" is an awfully tight tolerance for a rig like that. Same set-up, different day and it will change by that much or a bit more.

-Then again, you're not making gas turbine parts with it (one hopes).

You are correct sir. I know the limitations of this machine. It does what I need for the job, in the space I have available, within my budget. And while I am able to do work to .001, (good teachers) this job does not require anywhere close to that amount of accuracy.

I am working with standard 1018 cold rolled steel and 6061 aluminum. All I need is to be able to turn within .010" to fit standard ABAC 5 roller bearings and I use the DRO only to save the math time when milling to the center of .75" round stock.
All the other tolerances are set by the properties of the Red Oak I am using.

But it is nice to know that I can achieve and hold a .001" taper over 12" if I wanted to.

I had to teach myself MIG and powdercoating. Luckily I was able to find a really nice second hand 220VAC welder and accessories for $50.00 and a 30" wall oven for $45.00 and wire it into a corner of my small basement shop.

Honestly, the only reason I chose to do my own work, was it is fun to be able to put your name on something without out-sourcing the work. "I made this" still has meaning to me.

The Engineers creed states -
"If you can't make something that will do what it was designed to do, and can't make it beautiful at the same time, then why bother."

(sorry - I hit edit instead of reply by mistake)