South Bend 9" Lathe - DRO Upgrade!

I bought my first SB lathe several months ago and I really like the heavy, old school construction BUT ... I'm not so keen on the old school dials and methods of measuring that come with it. I wanted to upgrade to the modern DRO technology which is accurate and has the nice, large digits plus other useful features (zero, in/mm). Having done a lot of searching on the internet, I couldn't find a design that I liked for the cross feed, SO ... I came up with my own. I like how it turned out, everything is pretty much out of the way of chips and cutting oil and inadvertent damage by clumsy operators. The DRO displays travel with the carriage so they are easy to see yet still out of the way.
The design utilizes iGaging DROs - a 6" for the cross feed and a 36" for the carriage (my SB 9" has a 4' bed). I bought them off of Amazon and , at the time, only spent $132. The rest of the pieces I fabricated from scrap that I found in my shop.
Perhaps the most challenging part of the design is that it requires modifying the top piece of the cross slide. In order get the necessary clearance for the DRO and the bracket holding it, I had to mill out about 0.060" from the underside. It was in the area that simply covered the ways but still I was a bit nervous. After having carefully measured everything, there were no problems and things fit together just as planned.
smile.amazon.c...
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[@Split-Tongue]

Jim, just finished doing the upgrade myself on my 9” South Bend. Thanks for the video!

[@olennemac2502]

That's great! Send me some pix.

[@Split-Tongue]

I am trying to figure out how to send photos.

[@olennemac2502]

@@Split-TongueI'm not sure either. You can send to my email: [e-mail]

[@charleswelch249]

Love it that looks like something I can afford to do myself

[@RustyInventions-wz6ir]

Just found your channel and subscribed. Very nice work

[@minskmade]

thats a really nice upgrade. great bracket....nice work. sweet find on the lathe.

[@olennemac2502]

Thanks 👍

[@olieboer]

I recently acquired a South Bend copy (Sanches Blanes) from brazil. I was wondering how to mount a DRO on this machine because it doesn't have a straight line on it (except for the ways). Too bad I don't have a mill yet. Found your channel and subscribed, because you deserve more followers. Have a good one from the Netherlands

[@daveharriman2756]

This is great, so neat and directly in line with the cross slide lead screw, so the ideal position, I have a Boxford lathe which is a direct clone of the 9 inch South Bend, I'm seriously thinking about doing this mod to mine too, I like the way you mounted the other reader head to the cross slide set up, really neat. Yes, it looks really good, well done!, cheers from the UK, Dave

[@olennemac2502]

Thank you Dave! I hope you do give a try. If you do, let me know how it turned out and if you have any suggestions to improve. Best regards, Jim

[@bens3641]

Nice job. I plan to use the same approach on my 9a. Thanks for sharing this great idea! It really fits the lathe nicely.

[@michaelodonnell4467]

Nice work, like your approach. Thanks for sharing

[@gjkozy]

I gather the scales for my install and need to ask, what size square tubing did you use? Or was that a custom bend.

[@olennemac2502]

I bent that up from flat sheet stock but I suppose it could be fabricated from a square tube. You would have to cut one side out for the bottom side.

[@jonfriton7015]

Thanks for the video, great idea!

[@lukekennethd]

Thank you very helpful

[@lyndone.2682]

Looks Good... I have a set of these as well and have pondered how to mount them.

[@gjkozy]

This so far is the best solution for fitting dro scales to a South Bend lathe. I plan on using your example to install iguaging scales to my lathe..Do you remember what length scales you used?

[@olennemac2502]

Thank you! The scales I used are 6” & 36” for my lathe. It’s noted in the comments for the video.

[@DavidR8]

Thanks for this, definitely an elegant solution!

[@JeffStevenson-xg3jw]

Just finished the cross slide portion tonite. 3 days of work and experimentation. Lots to digest here but I finally got it working as smooth as it was before the dro.... thanks for the detailed explanations. It made all the difference.

[@olennemac2502]

That's great! Cool to hear that someone else did it. I love mine!

[@danmartin9558]

Clean install. Thanks for sharing.

[@charlesmayerchak6655]

Very nice job! I did a simular install on my Atlas 618 using the Iguaging scales. I would highly recomend looking into the Touch DRO. It works in conjunction with the Iguaging scales and gives true DRO function including lathe mode. It uses a tablet for larger resolution viewing. It's a great asset to the scales, also allows for linear scale adjustment by the way! I'm sure you will enjoy your DRO over the dials, I sure do!

[@olennemac2502]

Thanks! I have the TouchDRO on my bench mill. I really like it.

[@citizenone3442]

Good job sir

[@keep-it-crafty.]

A great addition do ypu ha e links to the dro scales great job and thanks for sharing .

[@olennemac2502]

I bought them on Amazon as noted in video the description.

[@raspen5]

What was the procedure to have the iGaging DRO to display 2 X the value on the X axis? I am concerned that the value displayed will be 1/2 X to small.

[@olennemac2502]

To my knowledge there is no provision with the iGaging DRO readout to change to 2x the value.

[@raspen5]

@@olennemac2502 So to be clear, you are not displaying Diameter, is this correct?

[@olennemac2502]

@@raspen5 That is correct.

[@bennyb.1742]

This is awesome. Just got a 10K and was trying to wrap my head around where to mount a DRO setup on the little guy. Thank you.

[@joell439]

well done

[@JK_Kustoms]

Fantastic👍 the best install I’ve seen for a south bend 9”