# Thinking about putting a DRO on my Clausing 3329 lathe



## Shootymacshootface (Mar 17, 2020)

I have been looking at my lathe and it looks like two of the three axies may be challenging to attach scales to.
There is not much room around the crossslide and the quill on the tailstock has to retract almost completely to pop the tool out. I suppose that I could notch the front of the tailstock housing to gain access to the quill.




Where do you put the scale on the crosslide?


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## DavidR8 (Mar 17, 2020)

My SB 10K is also challenging to add a DRO to the cross-slide. It's all curved and sloping surfaces. 
What I have seen some folks do is mount the slide at the end of the cross-slide, and put the reader head just below the ways.
Sorta like this.


(image sourced here: https://www.practicalmachinist.com/...d-dro-their-south-bend-metal-lathe-dro10a.jpg )


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## astjp2 (Jun 18, 2020)

Look at the Newall Microsyn, they use a 1/4" diameter rod for the crossfeed and you can get a 5uM scale and reader head and they are easy to set up.  I searched Ebay for a while and got 2 units for both of my lathes.  Worth every penny.  Tim


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## hwelecrepair (Jun 19, 2020)

The toughest part of a DRO install on a lathe is figuring out exactly what you are talking about.  Most brands will have a smaller footprint scale designed for lathe cross slides where space is prime real estate.  Yours looks like it would be a good candidate to be installed on its side on the two ends of the carriage and then use brackets to get the reader head hooked up to the cross slide.  The down side to that is that you will loose about an inch of travel.  Newall has a single end mount system for the Microsyn, but in my opinion I think the Microsyn is a litte too weak and fragile to be used on cross slides.  

I would just be hesitant about the Newall's right now for two reasons.  Their lead times have been ridiculous (4 to 6 weeks on systems) lately.  More importantly, almost every Newall system we have sold recently has had at least one scale that doesnt work right out of the box.  I installed 2 systems on wet grinders a few months back, and of the 4 scales, 3 did not work right out of the box.

Jon


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## Winegrower (Jun 19, 2020)

I also believe that you would not be happy with a 5 micron resolution on the cross slide.   I wasn’t, DRPPros upgraded my reader to 1 micron, and it is immensely more usable now.


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## hwelecrepair (Jun 19, 2020)

+1 Winegrower

Most DRO's that I install on lathes have 1um scales on the cross slide standard in their kits.


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