Thursday, December 3, 2015

Craftsman 109 Lathe - Easy Tool Post Steady Rest

My Craftsman 109 lathe does not come with a steady rest. That makes it really inconvenient to drill a center hole at the end of a long slender piece.

I was looking around Internet the other day, and found this article in an old issue of Popular Mechanics. That is really a smart idea. The tool post steady rest goes on the tool post, so it would preclude cutting with a tool at the same time. So it is not a real steady rest. But for the purpose of drill a center hole, it works perfectly.

So I went out and build one myself. This is how it looks on my lathe. Now I can work on the spindle to replace the one I have.


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