# Is this steady rest too good to modify?



## Dranreb (Feb 12, 2013)

I acquired this nice quality rest as payment for a tiny welding job today, the hole is 3" diam, I am thinking of modifying it to fit my Atlas, can anyone identify it?










Bernard


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## Dranreb (Feb 12, 2013)

Took it apart and got it all freed off and moving, to find that, stranger than the offset angled base, the smallest work it will hold is 11/16", rather disappointed with it now....


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## OldMachinist (Feb 12, 2013)

Likely for a cylindrical grinder. You could make brass caps to fit on the posts to reduce the size it will contact.


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## GaryK (Feb 12, 2013)

It's got to open more than you have it shown. There are gear teeth on the guides. It looks like the knobs are travel locks and the knobs on 
other side are the pinion gears to move them in and out. With the number of teeth remaining it looks like there is a lot of room to move.

Gary


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## Daver (Feb 12, 2013)

GaryK said:


> It's got to open more than you have it shown. There are gear teeth on the guides. It looks like the knobs are travel locks and the knobs on
> other side are the pinion gears to move them in and out. With the number of teeth remaining it looks like there is a lot of room to move.
> 
> Gary


I believe he was disappointed with the minimum size it would hold.


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## Dranreb (Feb 12, 2013)

OldMachinist said:


> Likely for a cylindrical grinder. You could make brass caps to fit on the posts to reduce the size it will contact.



Tanks Don, that would make sense, can't see it fitting a lathe. I was also thinking along the lines of brass caps myself, I could pinch a little more travel by lengthening the slots the locking screws fit in, but not enough.

Bernard


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## GaryK (Feb 12, 2013)

Daver said:


> I believe he was disappointed with the minimum size it would hold.



You're right. I got it backwards.


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## Dranreb (Feb 12, 2013)

GaryK said:


> It's got to open more than you have it shown. There are gear teeth on the guides. It looks like the knobs are travel locks and the knobs on
> other side are the pinion gears to move them in and out. With the number of teeth remaining it looks like there is a lot of room to move.
> 
> Gary



Gary, as Daver has already said, it's the minimum size, you are correct as to how it works though, it is very well made with matching sets of parts numbered.

Thanks for your reply.

Bernard


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## Daver (Feb 12, 2013)

I would think the hardest part of modifying it to fit a lathe would be getting the Height and lateral alignment just perfect so all three fingers came in concentric to the center of the lathe rotation... (Im not sure I said that right, but... Im a newbie).


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## Dranreb (Feb 12, 2013)

Daver said:


> I would think the hardest part of modifying it to fit a lathe would be getting the Height and lateral alignment just perfect so all three fingers came in concentric to the center of the lathe rotation... (Im not sure I said that right, but... Im a newbie).



My plan is to cut just enough off the bottom to be able to mount it on the three jaw, then after I have it fixed vertically, I put a block on the bed and then scribe a cut off line, I can then mark the center on that line.

After that it is anybodys guess given the shape of the thing..

Bernard


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## OldMachinist (Feb 12, 2013)

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.


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## GaryK (Feb 12, 2013)

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


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## Dranreb (Feb 12, 2013)

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


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## george wilson (Feb 13, 2013)

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


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## Dranreb (Feb 13, 2013)

Already started George, watch this space..


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## Dranreb (Feb 15, 2013)

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.


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## pineyfolks (Feb 15, 2013)

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


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## Dranreb (Feb 15, 2013)

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:


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## Dranreb (Feb 20, 2013)

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..


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## kd4gij (Feb 21, 2013)

Nice job looks great. It should servr you well.


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## thunderbirl (Feb 22, 2013)

Danreb,

Nice work!  

Could you go over your SOTP flycutter arrangement in a bit more detail?  I can see some sort of a bar with "the bit" all (somehow) tied to a faceplate.  It looks very ingenious and I'd like to be able to do something similar.

Thanks


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## Dranreb (Feb 22, 2013)

thunderbirl said:


> Danreb,
> 
> Nice work!
> 
> ...



Thanks thunderbiril, I really enjoyed the challenge I did a lot of thinking, just what I want from a hobby 

As to the fly cutter, the tool holder came with a bunch of old tooling I blagged from somewhere, no idea what it's use was.

I drilled and tapped a new hole for a larger grub screw to hold what looks like a small grooving tool from the same bunch, I drilled a hole in the holder for a fixing bolt near the tool, this screws into a T nut behind the dog plate.

The scrap bin strap is bolted into existing threaded holes in the plate (by someone lacking an eye for the perpendicular), I didn't bother with a counter weight as I used a very low speed due to the relatively large swing of the tool. 

The large cutting radius meant much less chance of a climb cut, and if the work was held up near the spindle center line this would help avoid any chatter or grabbing due to my worn cross slide screw, to make really sure I fed the work towards me, cutting from the front of the work towards the back, with fairly tight gibs this took all the play out of the screw and worked a treat..

I reckon this job was near the limit of my Atlas due to the cross slide travel, but I feel I know it's tricky little ways now, so will give the milling attachment another go sometime..:biggrin:

SOTP ???







Bernard


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## thunderbirl (Feb 23, 2013)

Sorry about the abbreviation... "seat of the pants".  Fully meant as a compliment!

Thanks so much for the pictures.  I'm very much a beginner.  I've done a little end milling and it was great fun.   However, an end mill on the Atlas milling attachment doesn't cover much area.  I'd like to get up to a radius of about 3 or 4 inches so that I max out the capabilities of the milling attachement I have and/or go larger with a mount on the saddle as you've done to cover more area.   Your creation looks like an option for covering some serious area.

Again, thank you!


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