Metal Lathe Steady Rest mod (ball bearings)

[Christophe Mineau]

Hi,
As I very often work wood pieces on my metal lathe, I wanted to get rid of the bronze fingers of my metal lathe steady rest.
Here it is, I milled some new fingers out of steel, the same model as the bronze ones, and I installed at the tip of these fingers three ball bearings.
I turned three bushings to adapt the inner diameter to the diameter of the screw and to properly seat of the bearings on the fingers.

On this picture, you can see the old bronze fingers, the new ones, the bushings ans the bearings.


My first test with a steel bar. It runs really smooth compared to the bronze fingers, also for metal.

[Hemi]

I'm gonna be doing much the same thing, just on a much smaller scale....... NICE work man!