Steady Rest - making to fit

[bcall2043]

Another member on this forum and I have been trying to come up with a used steady rest for our lathes without having to spend a lot of money. He had gotten one that was too tall to fit his machine and I had gotten one from a dealer in hopes it could be made to fit either one of the two Southbend lathes I have. The one I had was too tall for my 10” lathe and too short for the 14 ½” lathe. So we did a little tool trading to get both of us closer to having a useable steady rest. The base clamp with the one I traded him would not fit beneath the ways on his machine so I kept it and told him I would make another to fit his. I had found a chunk of cast iron on a recent trip to the scrap yard that was just right for this project. This afternoon I cleaned the winter oil protection and dust from the mill ways, oiled them, and made some chips. The attached photo is the resulting steady base clamp. I only had to machine the ends, the steps at the ends, the bolt hole and the bolt head slot. The rest of the cast piece is as found. Hope it fits for him.

We both have some additional work to do on our steady rests before they will fit our machines but that is just more projects in waiting.

Benny

 

[OlCatBob]

Benny! Man that looks really good, I'm impressed to say the least. I haven't been nearly as productive as you, although I did manage to score a 3hp single phase motor from my neighbor last evening. It's 110/220 34/17 amp and can be wired for cw/ccw. He was cleaning out his barn, I happened to walk over to say Hi. He had a bunch of scrap in his trailer already, and asked if I saw anything I might want. He pointed to the motor, asked if I wanted it, I thought it was a 3ph. from the looks of it, so I said sure. I also picked up some small chunks of steel that he'd gotten from his brother several years ago. His brother is a retired machinist, and I'm betting that the stuff is 12L14.
I got done with my Continuing Education requirements at noon today, came home and helped my wife around the yard, picking up dead twigs and such, and doing some raking, piddled with the motor as it turned dark, and then dark-thirty.
The bottom clamp looks great, can't wait to see how well it fits.

Bob