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DIY Lathe Steady Rest

Creating steady rests for old lathes for which there are no more suppliers is the main goal of this project, e.g. Emco Compact 8.

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Owners of old lathes often are not able to buy spare parts or additional equipment for their lathes since the companies have shut down production on these parts. Maybe, there are some third party suppliers delivering parts that may or may not fit. These parts are often produced with very poor quality and cannot be bought by people with a tight budget.

In this project, I show the process of creating a DIY lathe steady rest for an Emco Compact 8 lathe. The process can be adapted to any lathe.

As given in the project description there is a problem to get spare parts and good accessories for old lathes.

In my case, there is an old Emco Compact 8 in my workshop and I'm not able to buy a good steady rest that fits the lathe. There is a supplier for this steady rest and I bought it. But there were several problem with it. (1) it didn't fit perfectly. The center of the steady rest where the workpiece should be centered was offcenter by about 5-10mm. Thus, the workpiece could not be supported very well. (2) the carriage of the lathe could not pass the steady rest, since the the width of the steady rest bottom part is to large (by about 1mm) and (3) this product for about 144€ excl. shipping.

There are many ways to create a steady rest for your lathe. A very sturdy steady rest is created by "Make it extreme" Youtube channel. They documented the process in a video. But to build the steady rest and adapt it to your needs, welding equipment, a band saw and other stuff is required. Although the plans are online, you have to pay for it to subscribe to patreons. Another very different steady rest project has been created by Curtis Hajek. In contrast to the steel steady rest of "Make it extreme", Curtis builds one using wood. So, in my opinion, it cannot be very sturdy. "Soat Mon" Youtube channel documented another process creating a steady rest. It seems to be a very good steady rest, but it may require to cast aluminium.

In this project, we create a steady rest from a block of aluminium for the steady rest and some flat brass for the moveable parts. Using a CNC milling machine, the steady rest is carved out of the aluminium block. The same machine is used to create the moveable parts out of the flat brass.

Of course, not everyone has access to a CNC milling machine, but since the plans are published here, everyone can order it from a machine shop.

step - 323.62 kB - 09/03/2020 at 07:41

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  • 1 × Steady rest for Emco Compact 8 Has to be produced
  • 1 × Grip block for steady rest Has to be produced
  • 3 × Jaws Have to be produced
  • 3 × M8x20 ISO 4762 screw Used to connect and tighten the jaws
  • 1 × M8x65 ISO 4762 screw To connect the grip block and the steady rest

View all 8 components

  • 2/3 custom components ready

    I'm a maker09/03/2020 at 08:16 0 comments

    It has been a while since I started this project. This is my first project log entry for this project. Unfortunately, the progress was slow. But now, the project is close to be completed. There is just one custom piece missing which is not very complicated to produce. 

    At the current stage, I finished producing the steady rest itself as seen in the following images (video is coming soon).

    Steady rest on Emco Compact 8 bed
    The steady rest fits, but currently not perfectly due to some minor defects from the milling process.
    Steady rest on Emco Compact 8 bed (front view)
    As seen here, the axis of the lathe fits perfectly to the axis of the steady rest.

    Furthermore, I finished milling the three jaws and preassembled them to the steady rest.

    Soon a short video series will be available to show the production process.

View project log

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