On Mar 30, 3:21*pm, Bill Schwab wrote:

It is specified as 8 tpi and the compound checked out to 0.125.

I have a hunch that it will not bother nearly so much on a lathe as it
would (which it would bug me) on a mill. *Staring at the thing, I
suspect I will be doing a lot of "remove this much next" type of work
vs. zeroing the dials for large distances. *If I am missing something,
please speak up.

I had to live with an 8TPI mill for a while. You do get somewhat used
to it, and also learn fraction-to-decimal conversions pretty well. I
would count turns 125-250-375-500-625-750-875-ONE INCH etc, and make
the finer adjustments in increments of .025", like a micrometer. It's
easy to double-check or recover the tool X & Y positions with a ruler
graduated to 0.1" as long as your zero is an edge or punch mark
rather than a drilled hole.

Jim Wilkins