Making a steady rest

[Mayhem]

I postponed another job I had to do today and decided to see if I could make an attachment for my lathe that would allow me to fasten the steady rest to the saddle, so that I could hold the 31mm drill in my chuck to make the holes for the telescoping rollers.

I used some 5/8 UNC all thread to make up a couple of T-bolts to make use of the t-slots and used some 1/2" BSW bolts to match the threaded holes already in the cross slide. Welded some rectangular tube section on to give a level frame onto which a piece of particle board was fastened.

I had turned a section to match the internal diameter of the steady rest and this was lined up so that the centre line ran between the centre I had in the chuck and the one on my tail stock. I even chucked up a length of ground stock to check.

The pics tell the story:

   
   
   
   
   

All was going well until I removed it to test fit one of the assemblies and I noticed this
   

It took a moment to realize where I screwed up. I had placed shims under the frame to get it at the right hight but when I clamped it down, it settled a bit, so the hole would have not been in the centre of the three plates. Because the frame is a tight fit on the particle board, I used a screw drive to pry it up to remove the shims and install thicker ones. I must have rotated it slightly whilst doing this, as I don't recall checking the alignment again

I'll turn a slug and weld it into place and try again. The positive thing is that I know I can drill the hole this way. All I need to do is double check the positioning before drilling.