| Measuring with the Miller......
The making of 4 axles for two 3" scale Hunslet locomotives provided an unexpected problem. The axle blanks needed to be 13 .312" long. I hadn't got a 2' rule and I thought a tape measure would prove too inaccurate.
Was there another way to get the blanks accurately to length?
Yes, of course......Why not use that new DRO, showing any point within 24" with absolute accuracy? 
Before long a stop (angle plate) had been set up adjacent to the machine vice and the left hand edge of a cutter touched on its face. The DRO scale was set to zero and the job clamped in the vice. The table was wound on to 13 .312" . In a few minutes all 4 blanks were marked out to length by milling shallow flats on the waste of the blank, roughly 180 degrees apart. To finish, all you have to do is to face the job up to the end of the milled flats, appearing as a clearly described line when the job is rotating in the chuck. The faced blank will now be to your desired length within a thou or two.  The marking process was used again for every reduced diameter (3 required on each end of these axles). Repeated and wearisome measuring of every turned diameter length was also avoided. Overall, lots of time normally spent measuring was saved and my accuracy improved, both please a Model Engineer!  All marked out and ready for turning...... Notes - Don't mill deep flats as this can put the turned portion 'out of round'. Also beware if you have only a small amount of metal to remove - Deep flats might not clean up.
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