Incra Miter Bar and the Dial Indicator

[dusty]

work great together.

If you get nauseous talking about measuring to the thousands of an inch - read no further. Go browse another thread.

For a while now I have been interested in using the dial gauge to perform Shopsmith alignments; this has been especially true of the main table alignments. The problem (frustration) has always been with the sloop in the measurements brought about by miter bar movement within the main table miter track.

That unwanted movement is no more. I have married the Shopsmith Dial Gauge to an Incra Miter Bar. That problem is now history.


6090 6091

6092 6093

I plan to make some modifications to this setup but pictures show where I am headed. I plan to drill and tap the miter bar on my Incra V120 so that I can mount the dial indicator on that bar.

http://www.incrementaltools.com/INCRA_Miter_V120_Shopsmith_Edition_p/smiterv120.htm

This allows for the miter bar shown here to be used for another purpose and provides for a handle to move the dial gauge back and forth during table alignments.

You can also see that I am using a saw blade for the alignments. This can be done with the sanding disk if that is what you prefer. Also note that I have the headstock moved far left. The blade is not coming up through the insert.

When these pictures were taken, I was not NOT setup to do table alignments. Those alignments have already been performed. I have both extension tables and the main table tied together with the 5' tubes for stability (while I do these tests).

[papahammer8]

Thats one i'll try, i have the dial indicator but wasn't happy with the slop.if i couldn't control the slop ,how could i tell so i put it on the back burner. thanks dusty i will gladly steal ur ideal. hehe thanks hagd

[riot_nrrd]

FYI, I just built a variant of this:

http://www.newwoodworker.com/dilindjig.html

If you use your planer or jointer to get the miter bar exactly the right size, and then use a piece of thin plywood to stablize, you can make a pretty solid gauge without having to buy the Incra miter bar.

If you need to, you can countersink some small woodscrews into the bar. Then if you need to eliminate any slop, just let the screws out a quarter turn or so.

I was able to get my table aligned pretty tight.

Riot Nrrd

[dusty]

That looks as though it should work very well, riot_nrrd. Congratulations on a job well done.

[riot_nrrd]

Thanks for the compliment Dusty, but just to be clear, that link was not my article or my photo. This is a picture of what I made - somewhat simpler, but gets ther job done.

Riot Nrrd