Dial Test Indicator

A dial test indicator (DTI) reads movement through a lever arm rather than a straight plunger, which gives it a much smaller working range than a standard dial indicator but lets it get into tight spaces — inside bores, against the side of a vice jaw, or on a four-jaw chuck where a plunger indicator won't fit. That's what makes it the right tool for alignment work rather than direct dimensional measurement.

We stock horizontal, lever-arm DTIs with compact stems for tight clearances, across a range of dial graduations and travel — finer graduations for tool room alignment work, coarser ones where speed matters more than the last micron. Bezel and dial configurations vary by model, so check the individual product page for graduation, travel and stem length before ordering.

Typical jobs: centring a four-jaw chuck, checking vice jaw parallelism before a critical setup, verifying a fixture is square to the spindle, and picking up datum edges on a rotary table. Pair with a magnetic base arm — the indicator is only as accurate as what it's clamped to. For direct dimensional measurement rather than alignment, see Manual Micrometers.