Making a lathe steady rest

In this video, I build a steady rest for my new lathe since the old one I made is too small. I build this from plywood, with threaded inserts and simple knobs I made from bolts on a separate video. The real work is done by rollerblade wheels. I'm ready to turn some longer pieces without tailstock support now with less concern for vibration and wobbling. I borrowed heavily from other designs for this. Please enjoy!

[@75blackviking]

That is a really elegant design. Can't wait to see it in action!

[@JeffMarxWoodworking]

Thank you, I borrowed heavily from others for the design. It would have been nice to have for my recent vase project, but will come in handy in the future. Excited to use it when appropriate but don't currently have any such projects in the queue.

[@dtork47]

Very helpful Jim, thanks.

[@JimMarx]

Nice design!

[@JeffMarxWoodworking]

Thank you. I borrowed liberally from numerous others. I didn't have the broken circle on the bottom of the one I built for my old lathe, it allows for more capacity.

[@84deeanne]

very nice I'm new to your channel I need to make one of these what kind of wheels and where you get them ? thanks Larry from calif!!

[@JeffMarxWoodworking]

Thank you! I just used Rollerblade wheels from Amazon. Good luck with yours, it was a fun and useful project.

[@marklengal9990]

Mark. How did you define the size compared to your lathe?

[@JeffMarxWoodworking]

Thanks Mark, that was a little bit tricky. I started with the swing over the bed (bed to drive center distance) as my theoretical max internal radius. I then worked with the diameter of the wheels I was using plus a tiny bit for slop and vibration to get the max working internal radius of the ring. I used that to create the inner circle of the rests circle and cut that so that the missing part would be below the bed but concentric with turning center. I then made a largely arbitrary decision about the width of the support circle that I thought would be stiff enough and worked from there. Please let me know if that helps or is more confusing. I could provide actual numbers from my lathe and rest if that would be helpful. I appreciate your watching and commenting - Jeff

[@dtork47]

Sorry, I meant Jeff!

[@JeffMarxWoodworking]

All good, thank you!