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Steady Rest wobble

Swarthy

Plastic
Joined
Mar 1, 2021
My steady rest has a bit of a wobble, when just sitting on the bed. I want to try to true the bottom up. any suggestions. I tried some sand paper under the steady and dragged it on the bed and I could see it's not touching evenly.
 
I suspect it's bent from over tightening the hold down bolts. Do you know what Dykem high spot bluing is? Its easier to find then Canode. Put on some rubber gloves, dab on some bluing on the far end of lathe bed and make it transparent so you can see thru it. Rub on a thin layer wearing the gloves as Bykem will stain your bare hands. File and stone the bottom of steady and set on bluing and slowly push it up and down bed. Then try to slide in .0015" feeler gage under the steady. With one hand holding near the bottom front and thee other holding bottom back try to push and pull it or rock it and have someone try to slide in the feeler gage opposite sides of Vee side. Let us know what happens.
 
It's new first use noticed wobble, made in SHItNA I think it's not made machined right. I marked pattern on it with magic marker so i could see the contact points. At top adjusting screw it has a 3/16 wobble.

Do you think hand filling is best repair or try hand scraping with sharpened hand file.
 
If you lock down the steady and give it a two-finger push to the left and then to the right and it seems fairly stout but gives/moves that is not a terrible issue because it is there to retain the part's radial swing not end way. Standing the steady upside down on your plate and check with an indicator it would be good to find dead flat feet bottom or a slight dish of a half thousandth or so. I often found it good to bring my steady to a .002 shim feel. Putting the parts out end on your tail center and the bring steady pads to .002 is a good method. With not using the tail rotate to find the part high place is perhaps .012 out, set the high place on two steady pads and adjust evenly those two pade to push the part about .005 towards center, and the feel the .002 shim under the last pad as you bring it to the part.
 
New to me !

The only "critical" bit ot a steady comes in with roller bearing tipped fingers.

If not in a circle at right angles to the axis of rotation of the work, they will skate and mar excessively, worst-case, dig-in and build stress to one side as if they were trying to cut threads and tilt-over as they try to climb the failed "threads". That's PDR. Pretty Damned Rare.

So long as a steady sits at a decent right-angle to the bed, not much else is all that big of a deal.

You could probably "relieve" the center 70% of the total bearing area, hand-scrape the surviving high-points at four outer corners to a non-rocking right-angle fit, and have it be as good as you need it to be.

Simple situation. They are not asked to "traverse" as the carriage is.

They just sit there. A steady. At rest.
 
This is a roller bearing type steady rest. I have to put a bit of gasket .020" under the one side. I marked a cross pattern and found the hi/low spots.

My Question to all is how to make a jig or set up to true it up.
 
Steady rests need to have the correct height and be centered front to back as well as perpendicular left to right.
So correcting them is not a simple operation. To adjust the perpendicularity you will need to scrape both the flat and the v-way. The best way to do that is on the lathe bed. If you put an indicator in the lathe spindle, you can measure to all three fingers, that is the perpendicularity check. You correct the tilt by scraping the flat and the v-way. Once you have it perpendicular, put all three fingers in the center, holding a short piece of ground stock. Use the same indicator to check and see if it is centered. If it is too low, you can add turcite or similar to the bottom of the steady. If it is left or right of center, you can scrape more on one side to bring it back in line.
 
rimcanyon,
You're over thinking this. All you need is perpendicularity and square to bed ways. Center could be ¼" off both ways or more and still work fine.
 
Thanks I think that's the best solution, As I machine allot of chrome rods and I need the rollers to be in line as to not make a marks on the rods.
 
Marked lines under the steady and dragged it on fine sand paper clamped to the bed, lifting up a bit on the flat side so the v side is true to the bed.

I tried to scrape with file then an old parting knife blade with no cutting action. So then I got large flap wheel disk grinder took off the high spots. I repeater several times until I noticed marker lines were looking even. Then axial indicator in the chuck and I was zero on two and .010" one the third which i think was the posts wobbling in the sockets of the steady rest. All in all a success.

I have always used a friction type steady rest to machine chrome rods, A new clean rag pinched in the clamp and keep it oiled up and move it around after 5 minutes of cutting and it does not leave a mark.
 
How would a length of leather belt work in the steady rest with the finished side against the shaft and well oiled?
 
How would a length of leather belt work in the steady rest with the finished side against the shaft and well oiled?

Not at all well. It wants to flex too much - even "escape". One would need a full-circle "sleeve", not just tip pads

"Bacon rind" as an emergency MAIN bearing (surely didn't last in a ROD bearing) has stood up to loads - even in a cousin's dreadfully wore-out '56 Dodge mini-Hemi - long enough to get a decent trade-in on a new "Valiant" for his Mum.

But it had full 360-degree backing. And he only had to make it the few miles to the dealership with 90-weight gear lube in the motor.

Not sure the Quaker Oats keeping the trashed differential quiet even reached fully-cooked? You'd have to know subsistence farming around the great metropolis of French Creek, West By God!.. Virginia, "back in the desperate-poor days?"

Several plastics - and even more than a few WOODs.. make more practical "soft" tips.

ANY of 'em get grit or chip trapped, they will mess-up the shaft.

"The wise" have always preferred to turn and shrink (back then) or Loctite (present-day) a sacrificial ring or sleeve onto the work for the duration.

Let THAT surface take the nasties. Discard when done. Works a treat. Has always.
 
Not at all well. It wants to flex too much - even "escape". One would need a full-circle "sleeve", not just tip pads

"Bacon rind" as an emergency MAIN bearing (surely didn't last in a ROD bearing) has stood up to loads - even in a cousin's dreadfully wore-out '56 Dodge mini-Hemi - long enough to get a decent trade-in on a new "Valiant" for his Mum.

But it had full 360-degree backing. And he only had to make it the few miles to the dealership with 90-weight gear lube in the motor.

Not sure the Quaker Oats keeping the trashed differential quiet even reached fully-cooked? You'd have to know subsistence farming around the great metropolis of French Creek, West By God!.. Virginia, "back in the desperate-poor days?"

Several plastics - and even more than a few WOODs.. make more practical "soft" tips.

ANY of 'em get grit or chip trapped, they will mess-up the shaft.

"The wise" have always preferred to turn and shrink (back then) or Loctite (present-day) a sacrificial ring or sleeve onto the work for the duration.

Let THAT surface take the nasties. Discard when done. Works a treat. Has always.

Yep, got a bunch of sleeves hanging on the wall. Some are brass, but mostly aluminum. Both metric and inch. Not sacrificial. Just reheat and slide 'em off.
 
Yep, got a bunch of sleeves hanging on the wall. Some are brass, but mostly aluminum. Both metric and inch.

I have "been known to"... trim... diagonally - a length of cheap, fast, and ignorant sh**t metal, adjust to a near-zero gap.

WRAP it. Put a pair of worm-gear hose clamps, "outboard", either side. And jest take it easy 'til DONE. Either solid tips or roller just walk across a diagonal gapline, no real drama,

Brown "stick" shellac works, too. Heat assembles. Heat and alcohol take it apart.
Diamonds are held that way for faceting.

BFD. Stone-age didn't end because we woz outta stone. We still build with it. Modern ceramic kitchen knife is still cousin to a pre-historic natural Obsidian one.

Shellac don't even know "modern" chemistry yet exists. It just does what it has always done.

Same as clever-desperate humans have!

Solve the problem. Next ticket number, please?
 








 
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