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Steady rest

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Powder Keg:
At work we have a job to do that is using some 14" sch 80 pipe. The ends need faced off and pilots bored in them. There will be plates welded In at least one end to mount a hydraulic pump. Our biggest steady rest went to 4.5". So we had to make a bigger steady rest. Here is what we came up with. It's made out of 3" square by 3/8" tubing. I even threw some paint on it to make it look nice\0/





This could be easily scaled to fit any of your lathes and it was fairly easy to build.


Enjoy
:o)

bry1975:
Looks a useful bit of kit and much tougher than the old cast steadies! :thumbup:

Andrew_D:
Looks good, but I have questions........

I need to build a steady rest for my 20" WWII-era lathe, so I'm currently gathering ideas.
1.) I wasn't planning to go with anything as heavy as 3" x 3/8" tubing  :bugeye: I was thinking 2" x 3/16", maybe 2" x 1/4". What is the reasoning behind such heavy tubing?

2.) I am planning to hinge the top half of mine. Should make loading parts a little easier. Any particular reason why you did not?

3.) It looks like the fingers have brass pads pressed in, correct?

4.) Can we see some pics of the base and shots of the steady rest sitting on the lathe with the carriage out of the way?

Andrew

Sorekiwi:
Wow, thats a big version of the one on this page:  http://www.jrbentley.com/workshop.html

( :offtopic: but there is some cool stuff to look at on that site).

Powder Keg:
Hey Andrew,
1.) I tend to over build everything :ddb: 2" would probably be fine.

2.) We were in a hurry. It might get a hinge later.

3.) The brass is pressed into the 1" threaded rod.

4.) More pictures will have to wait till Monday. But I'll get some.

I collect pictures, off the internet, of things I think might come in handy someday. I had a picture of one similar to the one on the Bentley site but it was bigger. I liked it because it was simple and looked easy to build. It was on This website It looks like he used the Bentley website to build his from :lol:

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