FILENAMES: steady.jpg steady1.jpg DESCRIPTION: These are pictures of a large steady rest built by John Stevenson . John provided the following description: ----------------------------------------------------------------------- I've placed a picture of the large steady that I have been building on the dropbox at www.metalworking.com under Steady.jpg It's almost complete as all I have left to do is the bottom clamp plate which I shall do in the morning and then list these rollers in and fit new stub shafts. As an idea of scale the strip of steel in between two of the steadys is a 12" rule. Total cost has been [ all in UK Pounds ] 70.00 for the 8 plates to be laser cut from 10mm thick MS. 12.00 for the studding and nuts plus about 3 nights work to drill and tap all the holes. So for about 90.00 including the rubbing pieces I have a custom steady. I know this is over the top for a lot of people but a small one is cheaper in proportion. I dare say that half price would get you a half size one thats made to measure. In the rear of the picture are the two steadies that come with the machine. One is standard equipment but the other was ordered extra at a cost of 350 UKP when the machine was new 15 years ago. -- Also snipped from rec.crafts.metalworking -- Been doing a bit of thinking on the subject of steadies I have a TOS 10" centre hight lathe, actually 250mm. They do 2 steadies for this, one takes 3 1/2" and the other takes 7 1/2" diameter. I only have the small size. This is the largest size that will pass over the cross slide. Often though on things like rollers you only want to work on the ends and not travel along the work. I worked out that if you went from 3 steadies to 4 this would get the screws clear of the bed and you could get the full diameter of the swing in it, that's 500mm diameter or 20" !! I drew this up the other night and scaled it down a bit to reasonable dimensions, like 15" diameter Sent the DXF file across to the laser cutting people and had them cut me 4 tops and bottoms out of 10mm steel. Got them back next day, just got to bolt them together and drill and tap for 4 M24 steady bars with bronze rubbing pads on the end. I had them done out of 10mm steel as they can hold size and finish better at this size than a lot thicker and I have had the vee's cut in so other than a bit of edge cleaning I have no machining to do on the bottom face. Cost of the 8 plates and cutting was 70 pound UK, a casting would have been a little cheaper but that would have involved making a pattern and waiting for the casting and time is against me here. I have a job on next week with some 12" x 74" conveyor rollers and have been promising myself a new steady for a while. I realise that this is a bit over the top for some people in this Ng but the change from 3 to 4 supports on any lathe will move the lower two well clear of the bedways and allow a much larger diameter to handle tube work especially. I will get this up and running within the next two days as I need it and take some shots of it for the dropbox. -- Regards, John Stevenson Nottingham, England