Shop made steady rest/cathead

[slowtwitch73]

Here's some pics of a steady I made. I downloaded a cad program free from emachine shop, printed the drawing, cutout a cardboard template to 'ground truth' the dimensions and had it cut from plate a bit over/under dimension so I could finish machine. The bearing is 70mm id.. cheap ebay score. I made the fingers from some old machine hardware I scrounged years ago.. pretty old, think they are nickel plated. they were flathead, so I changed to Allen.

 

[Riggerson]

Nice work and I like the design. But would recommend some sort of guarding. There's enough things to go wrong on a lathe without having another set of spinning things to catch you.

 

[slowtwitch73]

Yeah, is what it is. I did make it so so it can face either direction with that in mind.. so the safe side can be towards where the work is happening. Multiple lengths of fingers would help too.

 

[Shadowdog500]

That looks like a job well done, but that last photo scares the hell out of me. Any way you can make several sets of different length grub screws so the screw heads are sub flush while that is spinning?

 

[The Cobbler]

Nice job!
I tend to agree with above posters re the potential risk

 

[fiftyv8]

That is a really beautiful piece of work, well done.

 

[txvwnut]

I like it but I’m with everybody else on the grub screws.

 

[matt_i]

It looks great and I know its of extreme utility in certain situations.

I'm curious how you established the center-height for boring the bearing race?

 

[2oolhound]

Yeah, is what it is. I did make it so so it can face either direction with that in mind.. so the safe side can be towards where the work is happening. Multiple lengths of fingers would help too.

Looks like we all hear ya on the multiple lengths of finger bolts.
Nice work!

 

[slowtwitch73]

It looks great and I know its of extreme utility in certain situations.

I'm curious how you established the center-height for boring the bearing race?

I put a flat bar across the ways and measured up to a chuck turned center then added an allowance of material to bottom which I then was able to mill down and add v grooves for the ways. I figured the height of the v's and had it all scribbed out on the material so was able to 'sneak' up on it.

The only touch and go bits were getting the 2 sets of v's cut accurately and not blowing the bore for the bearing.

Being a steady, it doesn't need to be dead nuts, but should be as close as possible.

 

[Shadowdog500]

I put a flat bar across the ways and measured up to a chuck turned center then added an allowance of material to bottom which I then was able to mill down and add v grooves for the ways. I figured the height of the v's and had it all scribbed out on the material so was able to 'sneak' up on it.

The only touch and go bits were getting the 2 sets of v's cut accurately and not blowing the bore for the bearing.

Being a steady, it doesn't need to be dead nuts, but should be as close as possible.

How close is close enough?

A regular steady rest does not have to be spot on because the fingers adjust where the rotational axis will be.

Your steady has a set rotational axis that is set by the bearing and can not be adjusted. The fingers on it adjust the part in relation to that fixed rotational axis in the same way that the jaws on an independent 4 jaw chuck adjust the part in relation to the lathe spindles rotational axis.

I imagine the rotational axis on your steady rest would have to be pretty darn close to the rotational axis of the lathe spindle.

I figured you got it close then machined the bearing hole in perfect alignment by locking your steady rest body to the bed and putting a boring head in the chuck and slowly making the first 0.020” or so of the hole bigger and bigger until you had a perfectly placed circle to index on your mill. Or you could use a sensitive drilling attachment in the chuck and use a small center drill to put a small center mark on it.

 

[matt_i]

I figured you got it close then machined the bearing hole in perfect alignment by locking your steady rest body to the bed and putting a boring head in the chuck and slowly making the first 0.020” or so of the hole bigger and bigger until you had a perfectly placed circle to index on your mill. Or you could use a sensitive drilling attachment in the chuck and use a small center drill to put a small center mark on it.

A good idea but how do you "feed" with the boring head in the chuck and the part locked to the ways? The boring heads I'm familiar with can feed in the direction of increasing the bore diameter but the Z-feed is done with the quill or dovetail-way table.

The precision would matter to me if trying to place a center-hole in the stock mounted in the steady (for example if the bar can't be chucked thru the spindle and needs to be setup for turning between centers. If the height of the bearing is off (low or high) then the tailstock will drill a hole that's not concentric with the stock's OD. Granted its going to be finished between centers, removing this material, but many times you need the speed of "3 jaw" class of work, sort of preserving the original stock's OD.

I'm not trying to poke you here, I personally don't know a rock solid way and am always trying to see if someone else has figured out a better way.

I think one could bore an initial hole in the best place that could be laid out with a scribe, etc, and then use a test indicator mounted in the chuck to determine where the bore is "off" by comparing the 4 readings of a test indicator and adjusting the center position of the boring head in another machine by the same amount as the bore is then increased to final size. But that doesn't address placing the steady up next to the chuck vs. placing it 2-3 feet down the ways.

 

[Shadowdog500]

A good idea but how do you "feed" with the boring head in the chuck and the part locked to the ways? The boring heads I'm familiar with can feed in the direction of increasing the bore diameter but the Z-feed is done with the quill or dovetail-way table.

That is why I said to do the first 0.020” or so only. You
Wouldn’t feed it through the hole, you would just make the first 0.020” a good reference to center it in your mill to finish boring it. You would bolt it to the bed with the boring head about 0.020” into the steady rest and would set the cutter until it just touches the closets part of the non concentric hole he made. Then he would rotate the head to a different angle where it isn’t touching and add 5 or 10 thousand to the cut. Then He would turn on the lathe for a couple seconds to make the first cut. Then he would repeat that same step over and over until the Boring head cutter touches all the way around. Then he would move the steady rest to the mill. He would use the 0.020” deep reference circle to perfectly alight the hole with the mill head . Then he would put the boring bar on the mill and make the proper sized hole through the entire steady rest.

The second solution I gave in my previous post was even easier. Buy or make an inexpensive sensitive drill attachment and use it to drill a small reference mark into side of the steady rest. Here is a link to a sensitive drill attachment. Just imagine it centered in a 5C collet and drilling a little reference hole into the steady rest that is bolted to the bed.

If your lathe is properly set up and the ways aren’t shot it should be pretty darn close anywhere on the bed.

If the rotational centers aren’t close it could walk your part out of the chuck. See joe Pi’s explanation on this video.

 

[slowtwitch73]

I epoxied a piece of steel bar across the steady, lightly snugged it to ways and gently bumped it to the chuck turned center, moved to mill and picked up the punch mark, removed steel bar.

 

[Shadowdog500]

I epoxied a piece of steel bar across the steady, lightly snugged it to ways and gently bumped it to the chuck turned center, moved to mill and picked up the punch mark, removed steel bar.

That would work too!!!

The one benefit of your steady rest over a regular steady rest is that once it is made proplerly the center of rotations will always match and you can dia the partl in your steady rest the same way as a 4 jaw chuck, and you can put out of round parts in it.

 

[slowtwitch73]

I thought about snugging it and using power feed to push feed it, but decided there were too many dodgy aspects to it.

 

[Shadowdog500]

I thought about snugging it and using power feed to push feed it, but decided there were too many dodgy aspects to it.

Your bump method was the most elegant solution. It gave you exactly what you needed with the least effort.