Grizzly G4003G steady rest too small; options?

[keeena]

First time needing to turn a long-ish piece in the lathe and found that the steady rest has a really small capacity; maybe up to 1.5" diameter. Is this normal for hobby lathes?

It seems you could make shorter length fingers and adjuster screw; adjustment range would be less but would allow you to get up to about 3.5" on this particular steady rest. Unfortunately don't have the right tools to make the fingers and you can't cut the existing fingers down because you'd end up removing the internally threaded portion (the whole bore is not threaded, just the end opposite of the bearing).

Just wanted to see if there was anything I was overlooking...

FWIW, I am turning, facing and boring the ram from a hydraulic press. Its 2" OD and needs some clean-up; the end of the ram OD is a bit mushroomed and the bore which holds push adapters is mangled. The stick-out is about a foot and figure better to support it. There might be a way I can sneak a long center in the bore, but doesn't help for boring and could interfere with facing ops.

Finger w/ bearing

Adjuster screw

G4003G parts listing: Link

 

[fitterman1]

Mount it in your chuck and bore it out.
Would
this be possible without altering any design elements?

 

[LEEQ]

2" shaft won't go in his spindle bore. I don't have any great suggestions, but I know where there's a will there's a way. I'm curious what you come up with.

 

[fitterman1]

2" shaft won't go in his spindle bore. I don't have any great suggestions, but I know where there's a will there's a way. I'm curious what you come up with.

What i meant was mount the steady in the chuck and bore out its id.
I did this to mine for my g0602.

 

[fitterman1]

Bear in mind i did it on another larger lathe.

 

[rgray]

It's been years but I remember that problem. Typical china "kit" you're left to finish it and make it work.
I cut the screws down to get it to work with the pictured size.
It still closes down to smallest size.
I did something larger once and if you loosen the outer set screw and pull the grooved collar out and re tighten the set screw on top of the groove you can gain some diameter ability there also without further mods.

 

[keeena]

@rgray - what you pictured is exactly the problem I'm dealing with. I did also consider sliding the whole assembly out and just use the gib screw to lock the finger. Unfortunately I'd loose the ability to fine adjust, but you're right that it could work in a pinch.

Thanks for posting your measurements. My fingers are also longer than they need to be; i took a look and mine also can go way past center. It looks like I could take 0.375" off the threaded end of the finger, still close to zero and still have reasonable amount of thread in the finger. This would get to about 2.250" diam stock. Works for this job, but still pretty small capacity don't ya think? Anyway - off to shorten them now.

@fitterman1 - the ID of the steady rest frame isn't the limiting factor; its the fact that the fingers only retract far enough to allow ~1.5" stock. That said, the steady's frame ID is pretty small (about 4"). Boring it larger wouldn't help; the frame design is just too small to handle anything bigger than about 3.5" (if you made stubby fingers).

 

[fitterman1]

I hear you, on my 0602 i wanted to make a chuck for holding rifle bolts.
The material was 3" diameter, but i couldn't fit it in my steady. So i took the steady to work and chucked it, then bored it out to 2 13/16ths and cleaned it up. Then i could fit my material and true it up. Couldn't remember what it was originally, but it worked and did the job well.
Good to see you can get around it to meet your objective.

 

[LEEQ]

Good stuff. I'll have to keep it in mind for my 4003.

 

[Cobra]

First time needing to turn a long-ish piece in the lathe and found that the steady rest has a really small capacity; maybe up to 1.5" diameter. Is this normal for hobby lathes?

It seems you could make shorter length fingers and adjuster screw; adjustment range would be less but would allow you to get up to about 3.5" on this particular steady rest. Unfortunately don't have the right tools to make the fingers and you can't cut the existing fingers down because you'd end up removing the internally threaded portion (the whole bore is not threaded, just the end opposite of the bearing).

Just wanted to see if there was anything I was overlooking...

FWIW, I am turning, facing and boring the ram from a hydraulic press. Its 2" OD and needs some clean-up; the end of the ram OD is a bit mushroomed and the bore which holds push adapters is mangled. The stick-out is about a foot and figure better to support it. There might be a way I can sneak a long center in the bore, but doesn't help for boring and could interfere with facing ops.

Finger w/ bearing

Adjuster screw

G4003G parts listing: Link

This was what I had to do for my G0750G.
Made up three new fingers.
Doesn't take long to swap them back and forth.
Jim