Large steady rest

[Frank46]

Buckshot, this may or may not make sense but here goes. You mentioned that your lathe like mine does not have a big enough steady rest for those special projects. My thoughts are these. Get a really big one even though it doen not fit the lathe. Make up a dutchman with a tennon that will allow the steady to sit up higher to clear the angular sections on the lathe bed and rest on the flats. Then make up a piece of steel that will fit the underside of the lathe ways and connect the tennon and flat piece with a large bolt. Almost the same arrangement as the steady rest on the atlas/sears/craftsman 6" lathes. Make sense?. Frank

[Buckshot]

.............Frank, I guess I'm not following. I'm not familiar with the steadies used on the Sears/Craftsman/Atlas lathes. And if you got one for a larger lathe you have to cut the base off to get it to sit low enough to align with the spindle axis, right? I also don't know what a 'dutchman' is in regards to?

..............Buckshot

[Frank46]

Buckshot, the base of the 6" size lathes has a small tennon on the bottom of the steady rest. Its just short of going downpast the underside of the ways. The keeper plate is located under the ways and is held in place with one bolt. The 6" lates have flat ways. The dutchman was my term for what I should have said would be a spacer block between the new steady rest and the under side of the ways. The spacer block would be either bolted or pinned to the underside of the steady rest and just short of where it would go past the underside of the ways. The clamping plate would have a hole in it to allow a bolt to pass through both the plate, spacer block and the steady rest and when tightened would allow all to act as basically one unit. I think that you may be right as far a the steady rest being low enough to be in line with the axis of the spindle/tailstock/ lathe centerline. But just maybe if its even close you just might get adaquate support from the 3 120 degree fingers on the steady. The bottom one would of course have to be set lower. I really am not sure this would work, but in a english hobby machinist magazine there was a picture of a whole pile of used steadys that someone had for sale.And thats where I got the idea. But then again you could always fabricate one out of a steel plate with the bottom suitable milled to fit your lateh and install the three fingers. Now you got me confused. Frank

[Buckshot]

..............Frank, I gotcha now. Well one of the other problems is what used steadies go for, eek! HSM magazine had a few articles on making them. I have a somewhat off the wall idea for one. Think of a big "F". It's on a plate clamped to one side of the bed with a standard going up. Maybe a piece of 2" OD gas pipe? An adjustable arm for the underside of whatever you're turning and one on top (to complete the F. HAve to think on it some more. I don't want to spend a bunch as I won't use it much, but it needs to be stiff and adjustable.

...............Buckshot

[Frank46]

Kinda confusing. Why not try a circular piece of steel plate with the bottom milled to fit your lathe with a big hole in the center. You could weld sections of pipe 120 degrees apart and thread the entrance of each pipe to push the fingers towards the center. Use roller bearings at the end of each finger. Down here in LA what with all the oil field manufacturing going on you'd think there would be lotsa used lathes and accessories galore. But darned in ten years have I seen any. Except for one really sorry south bend that looked like it came off the titanic. Even went to the local junk yards but no luck. Ah well maybe the blind squirrel will find a nut (or steady rest in this case). Frank