Project Information
The tool rests that come with most lathes tend to be too short for spindle work , unless you are prepared to move them a lot as you work your way down the roughed out stock . To make the two support brackets that ride along the lathe bed I used a single piece of Ambrosia Maple that my son had given me. I did most of the cutting out of shape on the bandsaw and then drilled each bracket to accept a piece of 5/8" mild steel . The steel came from a big box store in a 36" length which I cut into 2 - 6" pieces for the uprights and then used them as uprights to attach the larger piece to . If you can weld or have a buddy who welds you could weld the horizontal piece to the 2 verticals. I don't weld so I filed dadoes into the horizontal piece and connected the vertical pieces with bolt/washer/nut. A couple of threaded brass adapters allowed me to put some 5/16" threaded knobs into the body of each wooden bracket - one to allow the vertical steel to go up or down and one to connect to the lathe bed so the whole thing could move or be static. It works well and didn't cost much.