fixed steady

The fixed steady for my lathe ( 100mm center hight) only takes 50mm dia, so am thinking about making a bigger one for 100mm plus dia. Am musing about using ball races or plastic wheels instead of brass/bronze for the finger supports. Does anyone have any thoughts or experiance of this? The material to be turned will usually be thin wall tube and not truly round I only have the lathe so wheels would make construction easier, also save on the cost of the fingers.

MEW 208 was teh last time a large capacity steady was featured, I'm sure there have been more. The wood turning boys often use ballraces or inline rollerskate wheels as the wood is less forgiving of solid fingers.

J

Hi Gordon,

Many years ago I made a fixed steady for my Emco lathe using ball races (8mm inside dia.). The ball races were made interchangeable with plastic (POM) wheels. Both work well and have been used for decades.

Thor

Hi Gordon,

I made a large fixed steady for my minilathe. I used brass tips on the fingers and this seems to work OK. Further details are here:

http://mikesworkshop.weebly.com/large-fixed-steady.html

Mike

A few years ago I needed to machine the end faces and bore of some aluminium tube. As the OP noted tube is often not truly circular so its not ideal for being held in a steady.

I turned a scrap motor end plate so that it was firm fit in the 'oval' end of the tube and used it to support the tailstock end whilst I machined a circular land near the open end. This end was then ran in three ballraces supported by a 30 minute concoction of bits from the scrapbox.

There are some other pictures in my 'Rock Steady' album that shows the arrangement from the headstock side, also the resulting parts I made using it.

Ian P

Gordon,

As Jason says, woodturners often use ball races in their fixed steadies. Just scale up any basic design, I have used small ball races such as are used on router cutters to guide the cutter, fixed on the ends of the fingers. This was for slender work.

Phil

If you do use ball races then cut a simple cardboard washer up to go over the work and push up next to the steady to prevent any chips getting in between the rollers and the work.

These can cause indentation marks on the work or worst case scenario, jam the job up so it either stalls or spins in the chuck and marks that end.

Hi John,
That potential problem had not occurred to me. Did you find out from experience or did it occur to you first.

Les.

Some good ideas, thanks. I like Ians "lash up", may expand on that ,not forgetting the cardboard washer. I did make a steady a couple of years ago form bent and welded 20 x 10 bar, fingers M10 bolts with brass caps. Worked ok for just trueing ends and indexing for holes but too flimsy for real work. Thinking of 20mm ply for main frame and 4 fabricated finger carriers, will try nylon wheels and see what happens

Ians "lash up" looks like it has great potential

Simple and almost infinitely variable with the right modifications

I would also consider using a spare lower half of a tailstock for attaching any fixed point mods onto the ways of a lathe, you can easily add or remove any fixed mod you make by using a spare tailstock base

I'm thinking about modifying my mini-lathe (Amadeal CJ18A) fixed steady with roller bearings. My question is: is there an optimum size of roller bearing for such a modification (i.e. large or small bearings) or would a whole series of bearings differing in outside diameter to match the diameter of the workpiece be more suitable. You evidently can't use large diameter bearings on small workpieces as the bearings would come together before the workpiece was enclosed.

Hello Colin- I did make a steady, 20mm ply mounted to heavy steel angle with clamp and side bars. Works well for squaring light tube etc. Not tried on heavy work but will be ok with a metal frame and better clamping. Mine uses 25mm bearings ( I had some) on swinging arms, about 50 centers pivot to ballrace. Held in place with 6mm screws pushing on top of bearing axle.

Thanks Gordon. As I only have a mini-lathe, my work-pieces are not very large. I was just going to add bearing races to each of the standrad fixed steady arms - with the aim of reducing friction on what will be, as I said, small diameter pieces. More experienced lathe operators than me might just find my reasoning a little naive - so I was just sounding out what other people thought.

Hi Colin,

I have made steadies for both my lathes, using small ball bearings (6mm and 8mm ID) at the end of the steady arms. I also made rollers of nylon when turning some aluminium tubes.

Thor

Hi Thor,

Yes - that's about the size of bearing I was thinking of. And the use of nylon for aluminium as well. Although I'll try and get similar size ID bearings to standardise on the fittings.

Here's another idea, not adjustable, for a custom purpose:

Note the wrap of insulation tape to take up a tiny bit of slack and protect the tube.

Edit: In case it isn't obvious, the steady is a 3D prnt

Edited By Neil Wyatt on 15/06/2018 00:03:53

LBSC made them from wood to skim up the face of Boilers

Stew

LBSC made them from wood to skim up the face of Boilers, it work as well i followed his advice and made one to skim a boiler tube up sorry I don't have a picture and the wood was reused for something else.

Stew