This work is focused on the design, construction and testing of a strain gauge dynamometer devised to measure the three components of the turning force. For this purpose, an elastic element sensitive to torsion and flexion was developed. The effect of the cutting parameters (cutting speed, feed rate and depth of cut) on the force components was investigated. Additionally, the performance of the dynamometer was compared with a commercial piezoelectric device. The results indicated that the three components of the turning force decrease slightly as cutting speed was elevated and increase linearly with feed rate and depth of cut. Furthermore, the analysis of variance indicated that the three components are not significantly affected by cutting speed; however, they are significantly affected by feed rate and depth of cut. The comparative tests indicated that the strain gauge dynamometer presented a satisfactory performance, providing closer values to the piezoelectric dynamometer at higher depth of cut values.