Best Follower Rest finger material

[yukon_rose]

I'm adding a follower rest to my lathe. I've found a suitable unit but it needs the 2 fingers replaced. The fingers are about 1" wide by 5/8" thick and 2.5" long. My reading has yielded 3 types of fingers in use:
1) Bearing Bronze (VERY expensive)
2) Cast Iron (also quite expensive)
3) Sealed bearings mounted to steel shanks

Of the 3 choices which one would you use and why?

Gary

 

[Weldingrod1]

Bearings only work right when you can keep the chips away from them... driving the bearings over chips will lead to cursing. Regular fingers just push the chips out of the way. Learned that the hard way on my follow rest design
Regular brass will work fine.
Honestly, oiled steel fingers work fine too.

Sent from my SM-G715A using Tapatalk

 

[GeneT45]

Bearing bronze, by a huge margin. Won't streak or contaminate the part being turned, very lubricous. Excludes chips well. Iron is OK, but I wouldn't use it for turning anything softer than iron or it will scar the workpiece - hence bronze. Roller bearings - no way! You're going to get chips in there and they'll defeat the advantage of having a follow-rest.
Like Weldingrod1 said, brass will probably work fine. That said, the cost for this small amount is probably a wash.

GsT

 

[benmychree]

I have always used cast iron for both steady rest and follow rests and have had no negative issues with it, brass will not hold up well at all, roller bearings will work in some situations involving high speeds if chips can be excluded, especially in the case of steady rests.

 

[markba633csi]

Perhaps you could make a steel finger with a bronze tip

 

[homebrewed]

I made a steady rest using bearings. I use a soft brush to keep chips away from them.

In my experience the surface of most pieces still gets scuffed up some by the bearings. So they aren't perfect either. However, I think they still have a place in situations where you have a very rough and abrasive surface, like hot-rolled steel. That would wear down fixed fingers (scale is very hard). So what if the surface is marked up some, eh?

 

[Ed ke6bnl]

cant you make the finger out of steel and just put bearing bronze to the end of the finger maybe 1/4 in or so?

 

[aliva]

I have follower bearings on my rest. Never had a problem with chips getting under the bearing. When Adam Booth was working for Motion his steady had bearings, he used a piece of gasket material to protect the bearings, check his vids. I seen a lot of pro machinists on you tube use the bearing type, I think Keith Fenner also uses bearings. So don't discount bearings as a poor choice.

 

[rabler]

I made a steady rest using bearings. I use a soft brush to keep chips away from them.

In my experience the surface of most pieces still gets scuffed up some by the bearings. So they aren't perfect either. However, I think they still have a place in situations where you have a very rough and abrasive surface, like hot-rolled steel. That would wear down fixed fingers (scale is very hard). So what if the surface is marked up some, eh?

Not always possible but I usually try to make an initial roughing pass where the steady rest will run to true it up and in the case of hrs, take off the scale.

 

[GeneT45]

I think it's important to bear in mind that the OP asked about a *follow* rest. Some considerations are the same as for a steady rest, but some are very much different - i.e. a steady is not normally subjected to many chips, a follow rest fairly bathes in them.

GsT