Tool Rest for Lathe

I needed a new tool rest for my lathe because the previous one broke. The challenge was to make it really durable, so I looked around in my "small metal parts" box to find things that could be used. That's where the two metal rods came from. The pipe I had to buy. The important part is that the rods fit tightly into the pipe and they have a threaded hole in the middle.

Materials

• 2 metal rods
• metal pipe

Tools

• vise
• metal saw or pipe cutter
• grinder, files
• thread cutter
• drill

The hardest part was to grind and file off the end of a rod so it could be cut with the same thread size as the holes in the middle of the rods. Thread cutting was piece of cake thanks to the vise.

With the saw I cut the pipe to length. On one side of the pipe, in the middle, a hole was drilled. The threaded part from the previous step should fit into it.

The untouched rod was slid into the pipe, and it's hole was aligned to the pipe's hole. Then the threaded part of the other rod was screwed into these two holes.

Finally, the new tool rest was mounted onto the lathe.