the development of an automated x-ray orientation system for accurate measurement of the angles of cut of doubly rotated quartz crystal plates is described. our goal is to develop a prototype instrument capable of determining the conventional phi and theta angles to 4 arc-seconds reproducibility and 10 arc-seconds absolute accuracy for the sc-cut, and capable of measuring the general orientation of any cut on the bulk-wave zero-temperature-coefficient locus. blanks are assumed to be pre-cut to within 15 minutes of the desired angles of cut. a prototype laser-assisted laue diffractometer has been fabricated, and we are currently at the stage of evaluating and refining its performance. currently the performance of the x-ray subsystem is as good as 2 arc-seconds. recent improvements to the laser subsystem have brought its performance in line with that of the x-ray subsystem. when blanks are remounted between measurements, a precision of 3-4 arc-seconds standard deviation in phi and theta is observed for blanks with 3-5 micron surface finish