Tool rests - G0766

[Brice Rogers]

I am a fairly new person to SMC. I am enjoying reading posts about woodturning and wood "stuff". I'm glad that I found this blog.

I learned wood turning on a 9" Craftsman. I've turned a couple dozen things. I'm still in the "sponge mode" and am learning. I recently bought a Grizzly G0766. I was disappointed with the tool rest It had too shallow of an angle to allow me to use a bowl gouge on outside shear cuts. Also, it would only drop to about 1/2 inch below center. (Great for carbide but not gouges or skews when shear cutting). So, I started to make some of my own tool rests. My latest tool rest was inspired by the Robust comfort rest.

I started with a 5" diameter thick (1/4") pipe. I cut out a 90 degree quadrant and shaped it along the lines of the comfort rest. I precision-welded it to a 1" CRS post. I was fairly pleased with how it turned out.



I'm posting pictures of my new comfort tool rest. One of the pix also shows a 50 degree angle rest, a round rest and a curved (inside bowl) rest.325416325417325418

[daryl moses]

Great looking rest, nice job!!

[Hilel Salomon]

I should hope that you would be pleased with your efforts. They look great. Wish I had the skill to make the curved ones. I do have a suggestion. When I first started turning, one of our members was making and selling posts with two rounded rests, and I bought two (one for SC and one for VA). They are still my favorite rests for roughing out large and dry blanks. He stopped making them, and I'm surprised that no one else has offered them.

[Jeramie Johnson]

Excellent work! I had a robust comfort that I cutoff the short post and had welded on a longer one.

I recently stopped by Fleet n Farm and picked up some thick flat and round stock. Will ask the bro-in-law to weld them together once I have finished prepping them.

[Roger Chandler]

Brice, this rest is very well constructed. It does resemble the Robust comfort rest, but it looks as if the total offset of the curve from one side to the top bar seems to be wider than either the original Delta style rest that came with your G0766, and the 15" Robust comfort rest I have.

Just an observation on appearances in your pics, but maybe the hieght obtained by the curve upward allows for a better shear cut angle? At any rate, this is nice work, and if it gets you to the angle of cut you are looking for, then it becomes a beneficial addition! Bravo!

[David C. Roseman]

Very nicely done, Brice. How did you split the pipe? Plasma cutter, sawzall, abrasive disc? Belt grinder to true the edges? Braze some 3/16" drill rod to the top edge and you can probably start taking purchase orders from SMC members in your spare time. ;)

[Mark Greenbaum]

Is that the face plate that came with your G0766? Mine does not have any paint on it. Your tool rests look wonderful. PM me if you be interested in selling a 6" long one. That darned 14" long one that came with our lathes is too long, too high, and actually seems fairly soft on top. I've had to file, sand , and polish & wax it twice already in maybe 6 hours of actual cutting. Thanks for showing us your craftsmanship.


I am a fairly new person to SMC. I am enjoying reading posts about woodturning and wood "stuff". I'm glad that I found this blog.

I learned wood turning on a 9" Craftsman. I've turned a couple dozen things. I'm still in the "sponge mode" and am learning. I recently bought a Grizzly G0766. I was disappointed with the tool rest It had too shallow of an angle to allow me to use a bowl gouge on outside shear cuts. Also, it would only drop to about 1/2 inch below center. (Great for carbide but not gouges or skews when shear cutting). So, I started to make some of my own tool rests. My latest tool rest was inspired by the Robust comfort rest.

I started with a 5" diameter thick (1/4") pipe. I cut out a 90 degree quadrant and shaped it along the lines of the comfort rest. I precision-welded it to a 1" CRS post. I was fairly pleased with how it turned out.



I'm posting pictures of my new comfort tool rest. One of the pix also shows a 50 degree angle rest, a round rest and a curved (inside bowl) rest.325416325417325418

[Brice Rogers]

Brice, this rest is very well constructed. It does resemble the Robust comfort rest, but it looks as if the total offset of the curve from one side to the top bar seems to be wider than either the original Delta style rest that came with your G0766, and the 15" Robust comfort rest I have.

Just an observation on appearances in your pics, but maybe the hieght obtained by the curve upward allows for a better shear cut angle? At any rate, this is nice work, and if it gets you to the angle of cut you are looking for, then it becomes a beneficial addition! Bravo!

The comfort rest allows me to have a 50 degree angle for shear cuts. I did that on purpose :-)

[Brice Rogers]

I used a chop saw with an abrasive disk. I was just plain lucky that pipe would fit between the clamp and the saw blade. I took my time and was careful as the pipe was not clamped down. I would love to have access to a plasma cutter. On the edges I first used and angle grinder and finished up with a belt sander. Thanks for the compliment.

[Brice Rogers]

Mark, The faceplate is one that I picked up at a swap meet for $5. I bought the grizzly adapter for 1-1/4 to 1". I didn't like the goofy gray color with scratches, so I put on a coat of enamel that is close to matching the lathe.

My old lathe was smaller and I have a variety of other tool posts that I didn't show. My shortest one is about 2 inch wide and comes in handy when I'm trying to work on the bottom of something by the wooden scrap block. I have made an adapter to be able to use all of those old posts.

[Brice Rogers]

...It does resemble the Robust comfort rest, but it looks as if the total offset of the curve from one side to the top bar seems to be wider than either the original Delta style rest that came with your G0766, and the 15" Robust comfort rest I have.
...

The curved section measures about 3 inches in its widest dimension along the curve. If I were to measure (on the lathe) from the point where the curved section is welded to the 1" diameter post vertically to the highest point above the bed, that would be around 2-3/8 inchs. I'm curious how this compares with the official Robust comfort rest.

[Brice Rogers]

... Braze some 3/16" drill rod to the top edge and you can probably start taking purchase orders from SMC members in your spare time. ;)

I've been looking into that but have some questions. The pipe was 1/4 inch thick. Is it common for the manufacturers to use drill rod the same diameter as the thickness of the part of bigger or smaller?

I'm looking in to using drill rod or a hardening technique. So far my tool rests have been all regular steel (like 1018, which is common) and don't need to be cleaned up with a file or sandpaper very often. Since I first started turning a few years ago, I have fewer catches and they (generally) have been less exciting as time goes on.

Also, I've heard that some manufacturers are epoxying the drill rod on to probably avoid the severe annealing (softening) of the drill rod when it gets brazed. But I don't know that as a fact - - just something that I've read.

[David C. Roseman]

I think steel-reinforced epoxy (J-B Weld or equiv) would probably do the job nicely if the mating surfaces were carefully prepped. For your 1/4" material, I'd use 1/4" drill rod, and grind or mill a chamfer on the top of the rest, angled toward the spindle, before attaching the rod. You might be able to hold the rod in place while the epoxy sets up using several small welding magnets on either side of the rod, leaving gaps in the epoxy for the magnets, then going back to fill in when set up. Or use thin strips of duct or strapping tape in lieu of or with the magnets.

I'd try to smooth the epoxy as best I could before it sets, to form a neat fillet along each side of the rod for additional reinforcement. Clean up with a rotary tool once fully set. Just thinking out loud.

[Bill Boehme]

From what I can see in the pictures, it doesn't look like you would be able to drop the tool handle enough to shear cut. However, it might just be the way that I turn by dropping the tool handle at least 60° and usually more. The side view that you show gives the appearance to me that about 45° is the limit on dropping the handle. BTW, my favorite tool rest when I am shear cutting or shear scraping is the one made by Steve Sinner (Advanced Lathe Tools).

Regarding the tool rest height, I believe that there are some other threads on the subject and I believe that I saw that the banjo is being redesigned to allow greater range of adjustment.

[Brice Rogers]

From what I can see in the pictures, it doesn't look like you would be able to drop the tool handle enough to shear cut. However, it might just be the way that I turn by dropping the tool handle at least 60° and usually more. The side view that you show gives the appearance to me that about 45° is the limit on dropping the handle. BTW, my favorite tool rest when I am shear cutting or shear scraping is the one made by Steve Sinner (Advanced Lathe Tools).

Regarding the tool rest height, I believe that there are some other threads on the subject and I believe that I saw that the banjo is being redesigned to allow greater range of adjustment.

Thanks for your feedback. I'll look up the Steve Sinner tools.

I am still learning. But when I shear cut and with the grind that I am using, I find that a tool angle of about 45 degrees works well. I made my comfort rest to have a 50 degree angle. So, you are close but are off by about 5 degrees. If my angle turns out to be incorrect, I suppose that I could add a piece (such as 1/4 x 1/2 bar - - which I have laying around in my shop) to change the angle. I might even consider putting on a piece of hardened tool steel or drill rod.

If you are dropping the handle to 60 degrees, you would need to have a very shallow angle on the grind of your gouge. (Like on my Craftsman gouges). But, if you have something like an Ellsworth grind and positioning at 60 degrees (from the lathe bed), I think that you would be rubbing the bevel and not cutting. But maybe you were referring to 60 degrees from vertical?

What I find interesting is that Grizzly made their tool post to be limited to a 25-30 degree angle. IMnSHO, this is too shallow. If they would have changed the angle to 45 or 50 or (for your preference) 60 degrees, there would have been no difference in their manufacturing cost. So, they made a design choice that limited the use of the tool rest by some of its customers. I'll probably only use their tool rest when I'm using my carbide cutters in a scraping mode.

BTW, In my pictures, the tool rest is NOT at its lowest point. I cut off the bottom of the post, so it will be able to position it about 3/4 inch below the center. If I need to drop it further, my metal bandsaw is about 3 feet behind my lathe, so I could always cut off a little more. (ha ha :) ).

[Bill Boehme]

... If you are dropping the handle to 60 degrees, you would need to have a very shallow angle on the grind of your gouge. (Like on my Craftsman gouges). But, if you have something like an Ellsworth grind and positioning at 60 degrees (from the lathe bed), I think that you would be rubbing the bevel and not cutting. But maybe you were referring to 60 degrees from vertical? ...

I don't follow what you are saying, but I believe that you are not visualizing what I am doing. The angle of the grind is really immaterial ... You just roll the tool into the wood after making bevel contact until you start getting shavings. Maybe I should have also said that as I drop the handle really low that it is also necessary to drop the tool rest lower and bring it closer to the wood. The reason that I use the A.L.T. tool rest is that the back edge of other tool rests interfere with dropping the tool much more than 45° and I found that the tool was being supported on the back edge of the rest -- not the best thing for smooth control. Also, I ought to mention that I put really long wings on the gouges that I use for shear cutting ... at least 1.5" long. They are essentially an Elsworthian (Elsworthesqe?) shape with a much longer sweep to the wings.