Roller feeding system and roller support for long parts.

Looking into building a system to feed and support 20' long pipes for a large CNC lathe. We have a few ideas on what we can do but was wondering if anyone would share how they have done this. I'm thinking about using a beam and putting air bag/pneumatic type lift on the rollers to feed the pipe into the machine then drop out of the way and let the support roller do its job after. Was just hoping someone out there has some ideas on how we can do it better. We have to roll the pipe a ways until it hits the back chuck in the machine about 7' to be exact so was thinking the system was going to have to be fairly long to make the loading easier. The part that's gonna make it tougher is I have to be able to use it for pipe as small as 2-3" and as large as 14" which is the through hole on the machine. Thanks in advance for any thoughts or ideas.

Also done in every imaginable way by "oil patch" shops to feed the hollow spindle lathes - not only in and out of the spindle, but outboard steady resting before cutting on - generically referred to as Load Stations in my experience (the heavy stuff related to Drill Collars used swinging steadies)

Thumbnails some of the stuff I was involved with over 40 years ago (pages I created for a Drilco booklet - typed up on my IBM Selectric - with the right "ball")