Well we're back at it. I've started to machine another steady rest after scraping the first one. As mentioned I had three castings made and therefore I still had two left to work on. This time I started working on worst casting of the three. I think this one kinda shifted a bit as the molds were being assembled so the casting is just a little lopsided. So we placed the casting on the mill and machined out the bottom section where it will sit on the lathe. This actually worked pretty well so decided that while the jig was there might as well take the same cuts on the third casting as well. From now on I'll continue making the first cuts on the bad casting and if it works then doing the same work on the third casting. I don't have many pictures as the work is the same as was described in the last blog. I will leave you with one picture that shows both castings sitting on the lathe after their bases had been machined out. I needed very little work with hand files to fit them nicely on the base. Majority of filing was just to knock down the edges of the milled surfaces. The casting to the right is the bad one and will be used on the #39 lathe and the one on the left will be for the #86 lathe.
After I took this picture I did a little more work on the castings and I milled a slot in both where the upper section will fit in and pivot around. So over the next few weeks we'll continue working away at them and we'll see where we are when we write another entry towards the end of February.
All the best and Happy Valentine's day.
Harold
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