So my new tool rest is still a work in progress...

[Joshua Dinerstein]

Ok so an appeal the masters of the lathe here at the creek.

I have the HF upgraded lathe mode #34706, as opposed to the little $60 version they sell. This lathe has served me well even though it has a tendency to "stop" when I am cutting on the outter edge of a 9-12" bowl.

But recently I have need more from it than it comes with right out of the box. I made some captive ring tools following some of the comments/designs in posts here and I got all carried away with my success! ;)

Anyway, recently I was playing in a friends metal shop and we got to talking and he made me a new shorter steel tool rest. The length of the one that comes with the lathe, I would guess at basically 12", can make it hard to use at times. So he made me a pretty simple very strong T-Bar tool rest. The top bar is a 1/2" round rod and only 6 inches long.

We measured it against mine, including the repeated use of calipers on the tool post itself, and everything looked good but when I got it back home and tried to use it it wouldn't drop down in. I got my digital calipers out and took a much more accurate measurement to know how far it is off and it is only a hairs breadth off. I don't have that figure with me here but it was TINY!

But regardless of how much to big it is... it is too big. Rather than give up on it I wanted to try and make it work. I was trying to figure out how to keep it "round" and get the size down.

I ran a search here on the creek and low and behold there was a link to a post here by Jim Becker where he and someone else were talking about the very lathe I have and how Jim had made/gotten one and shrunk it down to fit. I sent him a PM and he very kindly responded and told me what he had done. However my post is part of a cut down bolt of at least grade 5. Possibly grade 8. So Jim's technique of a piece of sand paper wrapped around it and held in is hand has proved to not work to well for me.

So I thought I would ask at large. Anyone have any suggestions for me on how to go about shrinking it a few hundreds of an inch and still keeping it "round enough" to work well on my lathe?

Perhaps this is either a good time to get a new... what do you call the cam thing the tool rest fits down in to? Or perhaps it is just time for a new lathe with a more standard tool post diameter. ;)

Anyone have any ideas or suggestions?

Thanks,
Joshua

[Bruce Pennell]

Can't you set your platform on your grinder at 90 degrees, and rotate the post to take a hair off?

[John Sheets]

Joshua,
I have used two methods to take just a very tiny amount off the size of 1 inch drill rod from Fastenal so it will fit in my Powermatic lathe. I think I have made about 17 rests so far.
One is the hand sanding method, but apparently that did not work for you.
If you have a stationary belt sander, you can rotate the piece on the coarse belt. It you hold it at about 45 degrees to the belt's axis, it will pretty much rotate for you. You could take more off this way versus hand sanding, but I doubt that you could readily get a few hundredths; probably more like a thousandth or two. Just guessing, since I never have measured. I just sand until it will just slip into the sleeve.

[Mike Peace]

I am with John. Use a belt sander if you have one to bring it to the right size. I used a belt sander to clean up a rest I made. It did good.

[Richard Madison]

Bruce's grinder suggestion sounds like the answer if you need to remove something like .020" or more. Just motor gently and check the size frequently. It shouldn't hurt if it gets slightly out or round.

[Thomas Minehan]

Can't you open the hole in the banjo with a drill just enough to allow for the oversized tool post?

[Wes Henson]

Do you have a chuck? If so do you think you could chuck it and spin it in the lathe? Then you could power sand it- belt sander etc.

[Norm Zax]

May be obvious, but give a peek into the hole and see if there are any small dents, scratches or whatever obstructing the bar.

[Mike Ramsey]

I used to have that same lathe & had a friend make me 3 sets of posts,
had the exact same problem, solution was to take the banjo & have him
ream the hole out just ever so slightly to fit the posts. Easier for me to
enlarge the hole than reduce the posts.

[robert hainstock]

Since the banjo is cast iron, making the tool p[ost hole a little bigger seems easier than removing metal from the post. I have two after market posts for my lathe and the measure just under 1".:eek::)
Bob

[Joshua Dinerstein]

Can't you set your platform on your grinder at 90 degrees, and rotate the post to take a hair off?
I believe I could but I had the impression that I needed to keep it very very round. Is it "ok" if it gets a little out round thanks to the grinder?

Joshua

[Joshua Dinerstein]

I got a new batter for the digital calipers I have. I had not expected the last one to die so quickly but it had. Another HF tool so I guess I got what I paid for but it does work.

So the original tool rest post that came with it is .982 of an inch at the smallest and most of the way up the post is .984. The hole in the banjo is right at .984 of an inch.

The diameter of my nice new tool rest is .992. So I have to reduce it .008.

Sorry for suggesting it was multiple hundredths before. That would be the problem with using regular non-electronic calipers for that kind of measurement. I was pretty far off. :rolleyes:

Joshua

[Joshua Dinerstein]

If you have a stationary belt sander, you can rotate the piece on the coarse belt.

I fear I don't have one. I looked at some at the store but haven't taken the plunge yet. Perhaps it is time. I have 3 grinders and so perhaps for now I will have to try and use those. I think that I will see what I can get to work with a bit more hand sanding first. Now that I have an accurate measurement I can see if I can make any progress that way.

Thanks,
Joshua Dinerstein

[Joshua Dinerstein]

Do you have a chuck? If so do you think you could chuck it and spin it in the lathe? Then you could power sand it- belt sander etc.

I do have a chuck. The problem I couldn't think of a way around was that the round post end would be easiest to chuck and I could sand that pretty easily but that is also the end I need to work on. The other side already has the crossbar welded onto it. So it is much harder to grip. But perhaps I could make a simple jig out of a block of 2/4 and grip the wood in the jaws of the chuck and then sand the rest.

Oh... Just had a thought. I could grip the very bottom of the tool rest and work on the part that I want to keep round there in the middle of the post and then just gind the very bottom that will just be down in the banjo anyway. Hummm. That could work.

Joshua

[Joshua Dinerstein]

I used to have that same lathe & had a friend make me 3 sets of posts,
had the exact same problem, solution was to take the banjo & have him
ream the hole out just ever so slightly to fit the posts. Easier for me to
enlarge the hole than reduce the posts.
I had thought about that. But I didn't want to lose the chance to continue to use the old tool rest. It is still useful for larger spindle work etc... So I will try this a bit more and then taken the plunge one way or another. :) But thanks for the suggestions. I am glad to know that in the end it did work and can be done.

Joshua

[Don Orr]

Joshua,

I think you will be fine if the post is not "perfectly" round as long as you can tighten it enough in the banjo so it doesn't slip. The only way to find out is to try it and see. Just take a little off at a time until it fits and tighten it up and find out. I bet you will be OK. The fit is not meant to be super tight or you would have a hard time getting the rest in and out of the banjo.

[Harvey Schneider]

If you can spin it at low speed by the end of the post, a mill file should take off about 0.001" per stroke. Then just reduce the area that the chuck held it by. That will leave it very nearly round and with a smooth finish.
Harvey

[Joshua Dinerstein]

Thanks to one and all for the all the useful replies. I decided to try again with the sand paper. It started to work. I think I have been spoiled by sanding wood all this time. :)

I really up'ed the pressure of my grip and it started to take off the metal as others had expected it would. I spent an hour on the couch watching "The Davinci Code" and going through Sand paper. When I could really get it to bite in it would fill the sand paper with the same kind of steel powder that comes off of the grinder when shaping tools. I worked my way from 60 to 100 to 150 grit paper. The post is now all shiny and still (AIIGGGHHH!!!) a touch to big. It fits into the banjo but does not move with any ease at all. *sigh*

The worst part is that I worked on it long enough and with enough force I kind of sprained my wrist. It has been pretty unhappy for the last few days. I must be getting old. Naw!!!! that can't be it. ;)

So I figure back at it with another round of 60, 100 and 150 should get it the right size once and for all. But hey it went from way way to big to being so close it hurts!

Thanks again for the great suggestions!

Joshua

[Scott Conners]

Joshua, I had my dad weld me up a 5/8"x12" toolrest for my Jet mini out of some scrap cold rolled steel, and he just ground it lightly with an angle grinder to make it shiny before he gave it to me. Even with that, it was slightly too big in a couple of places (it wasn't totally round) so I pulled it across my grinder's 60g wheel a few times on the high spots. Remember that it only has to touch the hole in a few spots to be held properly - even though mine isn't perfectly round I don't notice any difference when using it, it moves great and locks solid every time.

[Wes Henson]

Try a file instead of sand paper. If you don't have one you can get one cheap. When they fill up you can clean them rather than throw them out. Can also file things while they are on the lathe

[Joshua Dinerstein]

Try a file instead of sand paper. If you don't have one you can get one cheap. When they fill up you can clean them rather than throw them out. Can also file things while they are on the lathe

I do have a file. I used to keep my current tool rest in shape. I had thought about the file. I had also thought about chucking up the rest in my lathe. I decided however that the whirling death that could ensue from chucking it in my lathe and spinning it could be disastrous.

I might try the file for the rest of it. At the moment I am just waiting for my wrist to recover so that I can hit it with the sand paper again. :)

Joshua

[Scott Conners]

I had a thought: vice-grips with a few layers of towel padding around the sandpaper - even steady pressure, and you just turn the toolrest as you hold the pliers. Or maybe a V-block with sandpaper stuck to it. Wrists are important in turning, so save em!

[Joshua Dinerstein]

I had a thought: vice-grips with a few layers of towel padding around the sandpaper - even steady pressure, and you just turn the toolrest as you hold the pliers. Or maybe a V-block with sandpaper stuck to it. Wrists are important in turning, so save em!


They are indeed! And well worth saving. Mine is on the mend but I won't be doing that again.

I did finish my new tool rest. Works perfectly! In the end I started using smaller sand paper and instead of grabbing a piece as wide as my fist, thereby increasing the size and the amount of pressure I felt I needed, and instead used a piece about 1.5" wide. IO was able to grab it with 2 fingers and reduce the pressure and still take off some of the steel.

I did go back and verify on the second bolt I was given how hard it really was and this tool rest started it's existance as a grade-8 steel bolt on a train of some type. The guy I got it from claimed it had been found near the train tracks near his home anyway.

Always important to recycle! :)

Thanks to one and all.
Joshua

p.s. I decided to make another one in a different shape, after all can you really have to many? :), and talked to a friend at work and Steve put it on his metal lathe at home and spun it down in mere seconds. In fact he managed to turn the 1 1/4" bolt I had been given down as well. Looking at what he had to remove I just had to cringe at the thought of doing that by hand! OUCH!