Turner's Slide-Rest, Homemade in Wood

[johnpipe108]

There are times when I wished I had a cross-slide rest for my wood-lathe, for those special cuts where precise repeatability is wanted, such as cutting an identical, angular groove in several pieces (it is this feature that I need to be able to put "dish" into model wagon-wheels, for example). I've had the idea brewing for a while, to try to make up a slide-rest from some leftover phenolic-faced Baltic Birch, and finally decided to try it out:

This is the first experimental stage; looks somewhat promising, though rigidity is an issue. Currently, the slide is held by the center pivot only, so can be rotated to a suitable angle. I'm brainstorming on a second axis, which would make it more useful overall.

 

[Glennbear]

Pretty cool piece of engineering John. :wsmile:

 

[toolferone]

John, that looks great. Good job thinking outside the box. Did you make the tool holder? It looks like one off a metal lathe.

 

[johnpipe108]

John, that looks great. Good job thinking outside the box. Did you make the tool holder? It looks like one off a metal lathe.

Yes, I made it from a piece of 1/4-inch aluminum bar stock. Two pieces one inch square are drilled through in 4 places, and sandwiched between two 1-3/4 inch plates; they are fastened with #10-32 screws, passing through the top three plates and threaded into the bottom one. 4 of the same screws per side provide 3 fixing-screws per tool-bit with up to 4 bits inserted simultaneously; I based it on the contemporary lathe tool-holders.

 

[WoodWrangler]

This is pretty darn neat ... keep us posted if you do more with it.

 

[DavidF]

Nice one John! to get movement in the other axis could you somehow utilize one of those multi-axis vices that they sell for pillar drills?