Is this steady rest too good to modify?

[OldMachinist]

Because the fingers adjust independently height and centered doesn't have to be perfect. If you can chuck it in the three jaw with the base rotated back some you may just need to make an adapter block with a angle on it.

 

[GaryK]

If I remember right the Atlas has flat ways. You could turn the tailstock around 180 degrees and put a drill chuck and a rod in it.
Then put your rest on the rod. Since the rest will be hanging off the back end of the lathe below the level of the bed you can rotate it how ever you need to before you scribe it.

Since your rest only goes down to a certain size you can turn down a rod to fit your drill chuck.

Gary

 

[Dranreb]

Good thinking Gary, will be trying that idea, no need to trim it first, I like that..:thumbzup:

 

[george wilson]

If you do not have,or know exactly what machine the steady rest came from,in reality it is useless unless you modify it.

 

[Dranreb]

Already started George, watch this space..

 

[Dranreb]

Made some progress today, making good use of my turret type Atlas cross slide.

To align the rest in the lathe, I made a mandrel to fit the top hole, when held in the tail-stock, this holds it parallel to the lathe bed. It will also mean drilling a concentric hole in the base should be easy too...



Set up using parallels cut off a cleaned up rusty bit of m/s stock, some random pieces of steel and four Stanley knife blades, all sandwiched with the thin pages from Machine Mart's catalogue to avoid the slippage I got on my first try at fly cutting.

A bit impatient, I took some .010 cuts to hack off the rough left after I angle grindered off the waste, this resulted in extreme violence as the cut changed to a climb cut as it passed though the front...:nuts: I need to sort out my tool angles and cross slide nut ASP!

Careful gibb adjustment, a few tries at tool angles meant I ended up with this, works well for me with no noticeable movement of the work, passed the finger test!



Still getting this secondary cut, even taking a .0005 cut, any pointers as to why I get this would help a lot, haven't measured it but can feel it..



This is the tool grind that worked well for me, it cut well at .005 without causing any chatter or thumping, handled the interupted cut over the hole very well, although you can see the edge has gone off it now.

 

[pineyfolks]

Looks good. I think youre on the right track fitting it but what are you doing to mount it? If you add a clamp and put a bolt in from the bottom it may be hard to tighten when setting over one of the webs in youre lathe bed. If you can drill all the way through the steady and use a socket head set screw you can tighten it from the top. Im watching your progress

 

[Dranreb]

Hi Bill, fixing options are open right now, but my thoughts are similar to yours, using a socket head screw.

I have a spare cast tail stock clamp, but if I go with top wrenching that would mean a captive nut below......:headscratch:

 

[Dranreb]

Gave up with that Chinese fly cutter as I noticed the thread that fixes the head to the taper was not drilled square, the head does not fit tight, and is tilted, maybe this is the problem?
Here follows a tale of true seat of the pants engineering..:idea2:

Lashed up another one on a faceplate, this has enough throw to clear the other end of the work, and was a great improvement.



Drilled a hole for the fixing bolt.



Went to get the spare tail stock clamp from the spare parts pile, my eye fell on the tail stock base...hmm..looked promising!

With the rest in the three jaw and the base in place under it, the gap was .014!!! "jawdrop:... two shims cut from a biscuit tin lid filled the gap perfectly..

I often say that I have got this far in life by way of happenstance and serendipity..:biggrin:



As the base is quite worn it was thrown to the saw and fly-cutter, they worked their magic..





Holes where drilled and tapped and the two parts were bolted together.

Job done and time for a test, this was a bit of a disappointment at first because I had lubed it too well, this meant the gripper screws do not hold when taking a heavy cut. Cleaned it all off and thing are much better, it still takes a lot of force on the screws to hold the fingers tight, I reckon that maybe a grinder does not push as much as a lathe..

 

[kd4gij]

Nice job looks great. It should servr you well.