- Joined
- Jun 10, 2019
- Messages
- 534
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
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