Myford ML2 Headstock re-fitting

i recently inherited a nice Myford ML2. To get it home I stripped of the 'heavy' bits including the headstock. I have been looking at techniques for testing parallelism of cut etc. (Isn't YouTube great) My cunning plan is to fit the headstock and tighten the three fixings, mount a piece of round stock in the three jaw chuck then run a DTI mounted on the cross slide up and down the round stock checking to see how far 'out' things are.

First question is: for a first approximation how long a piece of bar should I have sticking out of the chuck? Then how many thou per inch of bar should I aim for at this stage. I know that at some point down the line I will be doing test cuts so starting figures are what I think I need.

I realise the headstock alignment has to be checked in the vertical and horizontal planes.

Should I get the bed mounted in its final position first? I haven't decided how or on what it will finally be mounted yet. Lots of decisions and I'm not quite sure of the best order to do things. I would appreciate any advice please.

You need to take a skim over the bar before using the DTI to make sure it is perfectly concentric with the spindle.

Neil

Thanks for your reply Neil

At this moment headstock is not on the lathe. i am assuming I need the headstock in reasonable alignment with the travel of the saddle before I try and turn anything OR, should I get headstock mounted as best I can then skim the bar and then finally align the headstock using the freshly skimmed bar? I can see some sense in doing it that way: Have I got that right please ?