Boxford CUD Cross Slide Scale Mount?

[Don-F]

I have a Metric Boxford CUD lathe in Oregon USA. Not sure how it got here, but the person I got them from had several all rusting away and this one seemed to be in the best shape so I saved it. I have owned it for about 12 years and slowly my project success rate is improving. My biggest two problems with this hobby lathe are getting down to the final cut, under cutting it then having to take another cut and over shooting it and sometimes parting off gives me problems. I made a dial indicator mount for the lathe bed. That pretty much solved the over shooting problem in that direction. Instead of a cross slide indicator of some sort I was thinking about trying a dro? The lathe dials are metric and I always have to draw out the plans in metric, it's not a problem after so many years but a dro would let me use imperial measurements again. I did some searching for solutions specific to the Boxford Lathe cross slide. There are a lot, but the Boxford machines vary with year and some of them will not work with an MKIII lathe and the closer backsplash.



There looks to be two ways that would get a scale on my cross slide and was hoping for some advice from more experienced members.

The first solution I am considering is the standard slim glass scale that blocks the gib screws. I have to be careful as the backsplash position on the MKIII lathe is closer to the cross slide than the MKII so the scale pretty much has to be mounted like this or within an inch or two.



The second looks to be more work but its compact and doesn't affect gib adjustment at all. It uses magnetic tape and some millwork. I thought I would attempt this solution until I read here where magnetic scales can be inaccurate. I don't need super tight tolerances but if the tape is problematic, I am going to look at the first solution more seriously. One thing I noticed in the picture below is there are no wipers. Before I start milling away the cross slide casting for a magnetic head I was hoping for feedback.

 

[SouthernChap]

Might be worth emailing M-DRO (https://m-dro.co.uk/). English company with a good reputation and they'll almost certainly be able to offer you some advice (and probably a turnkey solution you could buy if you fancied).

 

[Don-F]

Thanks, I did email them and their solution involves magnetic tape also but they mount the sensor slightly farther back and add an aluminum extension to the cross slide. If magnetic tape was reliable enough the picture above takes out the extension M-Dro uses and isn't a lot more work?

 

[Don-F]

Not a lot of feedback. I tried to contact electronica as from the thread on touchdro says they have a little better quality magnetic scale. The contact form on their website errored out and no one answered the email I sent directly. Plan B... The carriage indicator solved most of my problems in that direction so I figured I may try one on the cross slide for now and forget about the hassles of fitting a scale for a bit. My MKIII boxford had a kill switch on the back side of the lathe as it was a school model. I think I can reuse that mount to adapt/make a mount for an indicator holder in that direction.