Finally made a steady rest for my mini

[Scott Conners]

I've been wanting a steady for my mini for months now, but couldn't decide on a method of construction, since a large circular ply/mdf type is beyond my tooling right now. When I saw Steve S's steady, I realized I could make a similar one using T-track and solid wood for the frame. I picked up Rockler's t-track kit on sale for $12.99 during the holidays as a xmas present, got a pair of rollerblades from Salvation Army for $2, and a bag of nuts and bolts from the hardware store. I used scraps I had around the shop for the frame - the top and bottom are 1" Ipe, and the sides are 2x3 kiln dried from the borg. The Ipe smelled horrific when worked, just a couple swipes with a sanding pad to break the corners made the shop smell like dog poo! I had to vacuum after cutting, I kept looking at my shoes to find what I stepped in.
It's screwed and glued, and I was surprised at how rigid it came out. I got a chance to test it yesterday, and it seems to work just fine! I had some issues truing up the wheels, the best way I came up with was a dremel with a sanding drum on it, and the lathe off. It worked, but not spectacularly. I'm still on the lookout for a better solution for wheels, especially something smaller. Hardware store had 1" bearings, but at $12 a pop they would have almost tripled the cost. Perhaps they will be a future addition, if I can't find something better. Anyone know where to find 1" bearings with thin urethane tires? For now, I can do a pretty small spindle if I only use 3 of the 4 wheels.
Thanks very much to Steve Schlumpf for the pictures of his to base mine upon, and sorry for the poor photos, all I had with me last night was my phone.

[Jeff Nicol]

Scott, You can get bearings for those wheels a lot cheaper that that! Here is a link to some on e-bay. You should be able to go to a local bike and skate shop and get a tube of them reasonable too.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ABEC-7-Roller-Blade-Racing-RollerBlade-HQ-16-Bearings_W0QQitemZ7121483982QQcmdZViewItemQQptZIce _Roller_Hockey

Looks good though, I need new bearings for mine also. The cheap roller blades have cheap bearings.

Jeff

[charlie knighton]

if at some future time, you might want to consider wheels from oneway, they have a steady but will sell the wheels seperate, they are made for wood turning, not cheep but you will only need to buy once

[Steve Schlumpf]

Scott - your steady looks like it should work great! I remember being stumped trying to figure out how to build mine and got the T-track suggestion from Bob Hallowell - then everything made sense! You are going to be surprised at how much something like a steady rest can help out when turning! I use mine all the time now for hollow forms and larger bowls!

Nice work! Thanks for sharing!

[Wyatt Holm]

Oneway wheels look a lot like roller blade wheels to me. I would say go to a used store and buy an old pair of roller blades with good wheels and use them.

[Scott Conners]

Actually, the bearings in the wheels I have now are quite good, they came off some expensive child's hockey skates and are very smooth and quiet, stamped Abec 7 or 9 (hard to make out). I was actually looking at using larger bearings as direct wheels themselves, but I hadn't even looked at the size of the bearings in the wheels I have. It seems to me that some sort of rubber or urethane wheels would help with any slight variations in the wood from grain, as well as let me use it on finished areas of the work without marking. A 1" bearing with a 1/8" urethane tire seems ideal, but I'm not sure where to get something like that.

[alex carey]

Nice steady rest. It seems you got some pretty good plans.

[Roger Wilson]

How's this:

http://www.grizzly.com/products/2-Red-Polyurethane-Wheels/H0727


http://www.grizzly.com/images/pics/jpeg500/h/h0727.jpg

[Bernie Weishapl]

Great looking steady rest. Should serve you well.

[Allen Neighbors]

Scott, take the wheel and T-Track off the rest. Go over to your Belt Sander, and hold the wheel against the sander at about a 45 degree angle across it. Turn on the sander, and adjust the angle to keep the speed down, and let it sand the wheel smooth. You can also make the wheel edge narrow, and make the wheel smaller this way.
Al