steady rest distance

[Ed Ward]

I want to turn some canes . I figure about 34' long (max on my lathe).
Is one steady rest enough or should I use 2. I do have a one-way steady rest.
I seem to get more movement then I like once it gets down to about a inch.
Never used one before but just testing and making some fire wood.
Thanks

 

[Brian Gustin]

Cane I turned, I used the good old "finger-under-tool-rest-and-wrap-around-spindle" steady rest..,. trick is getting equal pressure from finger that is just about exactly the pressure (which really shouldn't be much if any) exerted on the tool... Forces you to take light cuts (if you get even the slightest catch it can still whip around and bruise your finger... ask me how I know...) But it can be pretty effective if you have the patience... I turned my cane shaft down to a little under 3/4" diameter. Of course I only did a fairly plain-jane "looks like a dowel" cane shaft (out of white oak) and only a little embellishment up near the ferrule end where I mated up the handle.

 

[hockenbery]

seem to get more movement then I like once it gets down to about a inch.

A common cause of flexing/movement is too much tailstock pressure which causes the workpiece to bow as it gets turned thinner.
If you turn to diameter from tailstock to headstock you can likely turn a cane without a steady.
Fingers under the spindle will eliminate vibration.

Practice a few goblets with 6” stems find some 3” limbs with off center piths.
These little guys you can turn in about 20 minutes. ( maybe 3 hours for the first one)
Turn the stems with a bowl gouge.
What you learn turning these stems will likely be all you need to know to turn a cane.
Rudy
Lopez does a terrific demo on these. With a 6” stem 3/16” thick you won’t need a steady.

You can see a demo by Rudy Lopez if you Google.
woodturning advantage lumber lopez 4/18/18

 

[Leo Van Der Loo]

I want to turn some canes . I figure about 34' long (max on my lathe).
Is one steady rest enough or should I use 2. I do have a one-way steady rest.
I seem to get more movement then I like once it gets down to about a inch.
Never used one before but just testing and making some fire wood.
Thanks

Ed if you don't need one, good on you, but if you use one or two it will probably make it easier, nice you have the Oneway steady, but it is quite easy to make one or two more.

Like the one below with the UHMW plastic one, drill a hole that is size of the stick, saw through the middle of the opening, then with two clamps hold it on the upright that works just fine.

Or if you are handy with metal you can make the other one, it's always handy to have choices


UHMW plastic steady rest



Magnet steady rest.

 

[Ed Ward]

Thanks all the help. I have been using the finger method but I do prefer to have both hands on the tool.
I like the goblet stems suggestion , will look for the video.

 

[Brian Gustin]

Thanks all the help. I have been using the finger method but I do prefer to have both hands on the tool.

with the finger method, typically you kind of do - if your tool rest design allows, that is - Typically you have the tool on the rest, assuming your right on the handle of tool, you hook left thumb over the toll anchoring it to the tool rest, then wrap fingers under the rest and reach around the back of the dowel for fingertip support.. so you still have left hand anchoring tool to the rest. It does take a little practice, I started doing it out of instinct, myself and found it works beautifully as long as you don't have a really rough surface (which could drive splinters into fingers!) but also kind of requires a tool rest that isn't too massive to wrap a hand around. Not everyone can achieve it I suppose, depending on how big your hands are, and how wide the tool rest beam is (could get one of those round sorby bar rests though...)

 

[hockenbery]

Thanks all the help. I have been using the finger method but I do prefer to have both hands on the tool.
I like the goblet stems suggestion , will look for the video.

I appreciate that. It took me a while to develop confidence in using finger support.
I do use both hands on the tool
When I use finger support I use my thumb to do the forward hand job of keeping the tool on the rest.
A couple screen shots a gif of an ornament demo
.

 

[William Rogers]

I don’t know if this would work for a pool cue. I used a string steady rest when I made some 18” long finals. The string I used was #20 Hemp cord and it held up. Just an idea.

 

[Doug Rasmussen]

Way back in time I built a couple lathe like machines to turn long slender parts, pool cue shafts to be exact. They would have done canes very well. Strictly speaking by the AAW definition they were not woodturning machines. They could go from a square hard maple blank to tapered round ready for sanding in one pass. As you would expect the blanks had to very select straight grained. These were for two piece cues, the butt end being larger diameter were not difficult to turn.

At the time as I recall my customer had paid thousands of dollars to a professional cue maker to see and learn about his "secret" cue turning machine. He came to me with only a verbal description of the design. Basically it was based on a table saw with a lathe like setup holding the blank over the table saw blade. The lathe assembly slowly rotated the blank over the table saw blade doing the cutting as the assembly traversed the length of the cue shaft. The travel was down the length of the shaft like ripping a board. A template was used to create the shaft taper with the lathe pivoting on the template. No steady rests were needed.

Adjusted for inflation the machines would be in the $15K to $20K range today. This was secret stuff back in the day. Now anyone can get ideas by Googling on variations of "table saw lathes". Nowadays some of the better machines are computerized with blank rotation, feed speed and taper all programmable.

The whole situation of this project was different than my usual customer. He came to me with a roll of hundred dollar bills proceeding to peel the hundreds off his roll telling me to stop him when there was enough money for a good start on the project. He moved away from the Seattle area years ago. When I search for him I see his cue sticks are collectable in the high dollar range so apparently he's been quite successful.