tool rest

[SteveColes]

I took a beginner's turning class from Alan Leland a while ago (I was terrible).

One of the things that drove me crazy during the class and got me wondering was the tool rest. We were turning a spindle (the ever popular, bead, cove and flat) and I felt Tthat I was spending most of my time moving the tool rest. And this was on a midi lathe. I get frightened at the thought of turning a 36" leg with a relatively small tool rest. Do they come in different lengths? Or is there some trick. I asked someone and all I got as an aswer was "get used to it':evil:

 

[woodguy1975]

You can get a 12" rest for the minis. The bigger lathes come with 12" rests. That is a lot better. You could always get a second post and have a tool rest the complete length of the lathe if you wanted to. I've found 12" to work just fine for leg work and such. Both my lathes have custom tool rests these days. I like the round tool rest over the knife edge ones that come stock with the lathe. The knife edge tool rests require touchup every now and again with a file to smooth up any bumps that might have happened.

John

 

[mshel]

You can get a 12" rest for the minis. The bigger lathes come with 12" rests. That is a lot better. You could always get a second post and have a tool rest the complete length of the lathe if you wanted to. I've found 12" to work just fine for leg work and such. Both my lathes have custom tool rests these days. I like the round tool rest over the knife edge ones that come stock with the lathe. The knife edge tool rests require touchup every now and again with a file to smooth up any bumps that might have happened.

John

John,

Who made your tool rests? I don't like the knife edge style either and like Steve I would like to have a longer (24") and a smaller (6").

Mike