Making an accurate spindle with an innacurate chuck.

[kayz1]

 What is the Ali block with the holes in it called please? a mates Dad has a set on a shelf at home, 4 inches down to 1/2 inch in 1/2" drops, all in a row...
Ta!  Lyn.

[S. Heslop]

What is the Ali block with the holes in it called please? a mates Dad has a set on a shelf at home, 4 inches down to 1/2 inch in 1/2" drops, all in a row...
Ta!  Lyn.

They're called turner's cubes, and that's a pretty impressive amount of steps. I remember it being pretty tedious work making one with just 3 holes to bore, carefully counting graduations on the handwheels...

[S. Heslop]

Just to conclude the story. The steady rest eventually arrived after a week and a bit and works great (but if I ever make one of my own, i'd definitely give it 4 fingers so it's less of a fiddle to adjust), but even after that there was still about 0.60mm wobble on the end of the shaft. This was caused by the motor's own spindle that I couldn't grind better than 0.01mm using my plywood setup and dremel knockoff.

So I just scraped the shoulder of the spindle till I got 0.20mm wobble, which reduced vibrations to an amount I could live with.

With that the spindle sander is now working. I just need to pretty it up and figure out the dust extraction because whoa nelly.

Thanks for all your help!