"DoN. Nichols" wrote in message
...
The real trick, however, would be
to come up with some form of individual stops selected by rotating the
turret.

Either that or a poor man's DRO on the tail stock. Write down the numbers
and go... if you can keep all the operations within the travel of the tail
stock ram anyway. You could of course increase that functionality (if there
is room) with a couple clamp stops on the bed ways. Similar to the
micrometer stop many of us use for the carriage. Push it forward against
one stop for one set of short tools and back agains the other for the longer
tools.

A depth stop on the individual tools is also possible by making the tool
holders with a flange larger than the bores of the turret. Large enough to
bore a hole for a stop rod along the tool and a set screw to hold it in. It
would be very fiddley to setup for a job, but would be very fast for some
jobs once it was setup. Actually if you have a height gage and a surface
plate I expect it wouldn't be that fiddley to setup either. It wouldn't
work for all applications, but it would for some. For those it wouldn't
work with on the stock, you might use a bar on the tool post as a touch for
your individual tool stops. If that's not easily done make the tool holders
longer and press a ring onto them to effectively do the same thing.

The advantage of the stop rod on each tool holder is you could make dozens
of them cheap and easy, and leave them setup. Just add a list of them and
how they were set last in your shop notes book. Mine is called "The Pink
Book." Its a pink 3 ring binder my daughter gave me that holds tables and
notes I use all the time. I even have all my color recipes for plastisol in
the back, along with drill and tap charts, materials hardness tables etc
etc.