Steady Rest setup

[Riesel]

I need to someone to be so kind as to show and tell me how to do a setup dial in on a steady rest. I just end up chasing that thing all the way around the dial. There must be an easy way to do this that doesn't create madness.
Thanks in advance for you help. A link to a nice video would be nice.

Riesel

 

[hpshooter]

Have you turned two chucking surfaces, one at each end, between centers prior to indicating it in?

 

[rsmithsr50]

move this to the machinist section
buy a 24" 1 to 1 1/2 square bar
turn a 1/2 at each end between centers,
do not move your tool setting after cutting the first one,
just rotate the bar so a flat is at the tool , and move the
tool to the tail stock for the second cut
difference in dia indicate no aligned

 

[Riesel]

No, I'm trying to dial in from four jaw chuck to steady rest. If I could run center to center, I wouldn't have this problem but the barrel is a mite too long for that.

 

[ridgeway]

Support part with live center while you dial 4 jaw. Then screw the telescope jaws in steady to your part. You will need to fine tune with indicator from there...

 

[Kings X]

You can’t dial in a steady rest ......
Think of it like this: the leg of the steady rest is a fixed point. As the material revolves on that point the I’d moves up and down due to the varying wall thickness. Kind of like a cam lobe.
Now it the OD and ID are true to each other there is no movement.
If you are doing a barrel - chuck the muzzle up in the four jaw. Put a center in the shank end bore. Take a skim cut. NOW the Od is true to the center.
Put your steady rest over the skimmed area. Put the center back in the bore. Turn lathe on and adjust steady rest feet till they just touch the turned area. Remove center - you are finished.
I have done hundreds of barrel this way over the last 50 years. Yes they have held many national records.

 

[ridgeway]

You can dial in a part in the steady. Not sure why you say you can't?

On a side note...
I made a cat head that runs in the steady and 2 sets of 4 brass tipped set screws hold and dial in a barrel. This way, no need to turn a steady rest band on your part.

 

[shoot4fun]

While I don't own a lathe, I did have a good friend that used a steady rest for all chambering. I remember he always turned a perfectly round spot on the blank where the steady rest held it. I do not remember the steps he took to indicate everything in and, sadly, he is no longer with us.

 

[BoydAllen]

In an actual steady rest, the shaft rotates on the center of the od of the part it is supporting and if the ID is not perfectly centered on that, the TIR will be equal to twice the offset. On the other hand there are fixtures like the one shown in the early part of the thread, that work like a mid-bed half headstock, with a bearing and centering screws that can be dialed in. I think that we have a terminology issue going on here.

 

[Dusty Stevens]

Most that use a steady rest for chambering use a reamer pusher and let it follow the bore. There are some really good gunsmiths right now chambering in a steady- im not talking about a few trophies here and there im talking about world champ shooters using their barrels. A good chamberer can make a workaround for any setback and make it look like he meant to do it. New age guys havent figured all this out yet but theres always more than one way that works.