How to make a tool rest?

A friend of mine had the same problem. I took a chunk of angle iron I had on hand, and, welded it to the top of a 7/8" hitch pin from Northern Tool. It needed a bit of work to get the top edge of the angle iron parallal to the turning axis, but, worked well enough. BVasically, all you need to do is measure the banjo hole and pick up a rod that fits...and get a crossbar of your choice welded to it. Regards Dave Mundt

Thanks for the reply Dave. A question Does it matter if the top of the rest is flat, or can it be made from the same rod, welded into a "T"?

Don Ft. Worth, TX

======================= You can use the same stock as the post, but on most machines, the post is near 1 in. Diameter, and that means your fulcrum cannot be placed very close to the work piece (at least 1/2 in from it). That isn't ideal. A piece of angle iron with the vertical portion nearest to the lathe will allow you to move up almost into contact with the work piece. The down side of this configuration is the possibility of running your tool past the end of the rest and having your finger slammmed down by the tool against the horizontal part of the angle iron. The cure for this is either filling the interior of the "L" with wood, epoxy, etc., or covering the open portion with sheet metal, etc. Make a careful measurement of your post. Many lathes use 1 inch posts, but their Asian counterparts use 25 mm posts. That's only 0.4mm difference, but it can be a problem. Good luck.

Ken Moon Webbervile, TX.

Hi Don

I'm not quite sure what you mean by toolrest and holder, I assume that "the bracket attached to the pipe" means the so called banjo and that you need what we call the toolrest, If that is the case I have made my toolrests myself and have pictures of them in one of my albums on the net. Have a look and see if that's what you need, they are very simple to make.

Hope that's some help for you.

Have fun and take care Leo Van Der Loo

BigDaddy wrote:

Sorry Don

forgot to include the album address,

As a matter of fact, round rests like this seem to be the current fad in the turning world. There is a lot to be said for the bar type of rest, as it can make certain operations easier. I have yet to make one up to test the theory myself, although I have, at least, thought of it several times. Regards dave mundt

Art Ransom's site is helpful :

Q: How do you make a tool rest? A: Take away the wood.

:-)

I made a couple of extra rests out of steel rod welded into a "T", and I actually like them quite a lot better than the cast iron ones that came with my lathe. Before welding, I ground the end of the rod that goes into the banjo slightly concave on the end of a belt sander to limit the gap I had to fill in, but the whole project only took about

Aut inveniam viam aut faciam

I am going to try and weld up a couple today. I have a friend bringing his welder over. Thanks for the ideas.

Don