Steady rest and lead screw on the cheap. post no 2

[ieezitin]

Hi guys
I have been busy in the shop the last week or so and I had a week just devoted to modding one of my lathes. I don’t have a set of change gears so I cannot use the lead screw for turning and I have a center steady that I need bearings installed other than the steel heads supplied as this particular factory supplied unit tears up my fixtures.

Being as cheap as I am I rummaged around the shop and come up with some Ali plate, bearings I got from an auction and I sneaked in the office and stole the wife’s paper shredding machine.  

Now I was going to do a nice pictorial on the steady rest because I do not have a working mill at present, and all the milling I did was done on the lathe, I was hoping to show some new people how good a lathe can mill. But I dropped the camera in the shop and broke the plastic case. Irony is its not my camera it was a loaner while mine is being repaired so now I have two repair bills so these projects cost me more in the long run. Oh well life goes on.

Anyways here are the results of my labor









The shredder motor and gear unit is the complete drive just the shredding bars are removed but I had to modify a old two gear housing from an Atlas saddle I had laying around to get it reduced to about 11rpm to a 74 tooth gear direct on the screw, that’s the housing with the hole in it made of that Zymack stuff. BTW it’s a reversible drive as well.

Although it ran fine the motor seamed intermittent, sparks were spitting from the brushes and it grained my cut so I achieved nothing, But!!!!!!! I have some mystery stainless which I turned and it came out like glass and every other lathe I own will not touch it.
Still I relegated it to the scrap heap as a failure.

The steady rest is a success and the bearings run like a charm


Bogs, I understand about the band width, I deleted the first post. Now I got the pics from Photobucket but they are still large hope this is not screwing up the site as well. If its still a problem I need to understand how to post the pics correctly.

[bogstandard]

That is now perfect, many thanks, I can now see the pictures fine and you are doing your utmost to keep the site going.

Now I can comment,

That fixed steady should be fine with the ali fingers, they do not need to be very tight against the job, just enough to stop the flex. A mod job well done.

With regards to the shredder drive, you win some you lose some, as long as you eventually end up with more winners than losers you are in profit.

Don't be put off by failure on some of your projects, I have had some stupendous ones in my time, one costing as much as a new large lathe or mill, just shrug your shoulders and bounce back, but make sure you blame it on someone further down the pecking order, if there is anyone lower. In my situation, the buck stopped at yours truly. I can still feel the a**e kicking I got for that one.


Bogs

[Brass_Machine]

Nice job on the steady rest.

As far as the shredder motor goes... Remember, Trial and error are sometimes the only way to get something to work. File away what worked and toss the rest.

Eric

[dsquire]

ieezitin

Nice job on those mods. They may not always work exactly the way that we would like but if you don't at least try you get nothing. Sometimes you even get a WOW, that is even better than I expected! You just gotta keep trying. All the best. 

Cheers 

Don