Outbourd turning toolrest

Keep your cuts as light as possible. Let the wood come to the tool, and hold the tool firmly to the rest. Concentrate on not following the interrupted contour or you'll set up a chain of off-balance problems. I find it best to begin in the center of the piece, where I can develop a continuous surface rapidly, then, coming from this as a reference, I take small bites out toward the rim, developing an ever broader base to guide the bevel of the tool. Though it does not require it, it certainly is easier to do these cuts with an overhand grip and a gouge as close to 90 degrees over the rest as possible.

A stand-alone is _never_ referenced to the same steady point the lathe is. Closest you can come is to have a rigid stand bolted to the floor for your lathe and the same for your rest. Only variable now is residual or introduced flex, which you can minimize by the cutting techniques above. I favor using this

over the floor rest. The game is to make the lever arm as short as possible when using it.

The Powermatic plan featuring a swing arm rotating from a fixed position on the end of the lathe and a post which goes all the way to the floor under the toolrest is the best outboard I've used. Might have been on the Delta, come to think. Go to owwm.com and check out some old lathe pictures.

What about providing support undet the outboard tool rest?

Jack

Theoretically, it seems to me there are two good reasons why the rest should always be connected to the same stand/mount as the headstock:

- Any vibration in the headstock would be transferred to the tool rest. So the rest and the workpiece would vibrate "in concert", which has to give better results than having the two vibrate independently.

- Any downward force by the piece on the tool, leads to an equivalent opposing upward force by the tool on the piece. If the toolrest is not connected to the lathe, then (still theoretically) and deep cut would tend to topple the lathe over backwards. Keeping the two connected means that the opposing energies are absorbed and compensated by the structure.

Or maybe these are both the same point...

(Caveat: I have no experience with this, I'm just theorizing)

I would be inclined to go with Jack's idea, and provide a support from the lathe stand to the toolrest arm.

/M

Steven I have the same lathe and am using my Record Bowl Lathe tool rest with it. The stand is a tripod arrangement and I am thinking of building a dedicated replacement for it. If I do I will post it here.