I finally got the compound rest done, so I decided to finish the larger dial kit from Tallgrass Tools. Like the cross slide kit, I bought the dial engraved, which made it a pretty easy job. I had to machine the back plate, including engraving the index mark, and machine the dial and the center part. Overall I think it came out excellently, and once the back plate was done, the rest of the job was easy.
After drilling the holes in the backing plate, I drilled and tapped a piece of aluminum bar and machined a spigot in the end to hold the backing plate. It slipped out of the fixture once due to a dull end mill, but once that was swapped it worked pretty well.
Test fitting the backing plate on the screw and some shots of the finished assembly.
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