Lou S, a fellow Model Engineering Club member and I completed this steady rest for his wood lathe. The steady was started many years ago by Lou finally decided it needed to be finished. We collaborated on the work and the results are seen above.
The Steady is all aluminum with the rollers being made from the wheels of an inline skate.
Final alignment of the roller arms and their angular placement of 120 Degrees was attained by mounting the steady on the lathe bed, putting a large dia piece of steel in the chuck and mounting the 3 fingers in relation to the C/L of the spindle.
We spent a pleasant two days at work in a nice warm shop.
This project was a lot of fun because It was different and I got to use tools I haven’t had out in years.
Lou was kind enough to provide the shop with an ample supply of scratch paper, and a nice supply of pencils.
He probably noticed most of my notes and sketches were on the back of old envelopes and I used sharpened away pencils stubs that were stolen from Motels and Libraries over the years.
Another benefit I had is that he wanted his steady finished and he had to listen to my stories in order to get his job done.
