slide rest, lathe
• WHEN YOU ADD a compound slide rest to a
Compound
slide rest
for a wood lathe
By WALTER E. BURTON
Have you wished you could do metal
turning? This accessory lets you do
it on your wood lathe. Furthermore,
you don't need special metalworking
equipment to make the slide rest
Upside-down assembly of cross-slide sections
assures accuracy. After rails F are joined to
end supports and plate J, use assembly as
spacing cradle for rails E. Slip paper between
gib and rail before clamping to drill for bolts
and pins at the right
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wood-turning lathe, you expand the tool's abili-
ties to include reasonably precise machining of
metals, plastics, hardwoods—any turnable ma-
terial.
The lathe does not need altering unless you
must change pulleys or add a jack shaft to pro-
duce spindle speeds low enough for metal turn-
ing. You'll probably also want to add a chuck or
two of the type used to hold metal rods, tubes
and rings—say one universal (3-jaw) chuck
and one independent 4-jaw type.
The compound slide rest shown in use on the
facing page was designed to be built in a shop
that presently has no metal-working lathe. It's
not as complicated as a quick glance at the
drawings on the following pages might suggest.
The basic materials needed will include:
One plate of 3/8" steel and three plates
of 1/4" steel (keyed A, J, K and S on the
drawings); four 5/8"-square steel bars for the
lower slide rails (E and F); four %-in.-square
steel bars for the upper slide rails (L and
P); strips of 1/8" -thick brass in 5/16" and 3/4"
widths, for the gibs and their retaining plates (I
and O); eight end supports of 1/4-in. steel (B and
C, G and H, M and N, Q and R); pieces of the
same stock, to form the tool-post slot; enough
3/8-16 threaded rod (the type sold in local hard-
ware stores) to make one 6-in. and one 10-in.
To make a curved slot in plate J, secure plate
K to it with a pivot bolt and drill a series of
overlapping holes through the locking bolt hole,
while K is pivoted about 100 deg. Then file
away jagged edges and file a hex nut to fit the
slot as shown on page 2383
 Drill rails for bolts and pins, using pre-
drilled end supports as templates
feed screw; and two brass blocks, each 3/4" to
1" square and about 1" long, for feed-
screw nuts, which are stationary.
Start with the cross slide. This half of the as-
sembly consists of two rail-and-plate sections.
The bottom (fixed) section bolts to the lathe
bed; the top (sliding) section moves crosswise
to the lathe bed—as for facing cuts—and serves
as a mount for the pivoting compound slide. The
gibs, attached to the rails of the sliding section,
are adjustable to control any play that may
develop.
It's important that rails are mounted exactly
parallel to each other and to the plate on which
their end supports are mounted. Assemble the
top section first, clamping the rails in position
and using the predrilled end supports for boring
templates, as in Fig. 1. Note that the gib-retain-
ing plates are already attached to the rails. A
V-block makes a good clamping support. After
these rails are secured, use them as a form for
clamping the lower, fixed rails while the latter
are drilled for the bolts and pins that fasten them
to their end supports (Fig. 2). Before applying
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slide rest, lathe

The disassembled compound slide is in the fore-

ground, with the cross slide to the rear. A detached
gib and retaining strip are at the left, in front of the
upside-down feed table

The slide rest consists of two units: The cross slide

(the color-shaded portion of these two pages) bolts
to the lathe bed; the compound slide pivots on top.
Each unit has two rail-and-plate sections. The key
letters used in the text refer to the pull-apart assembly
above and the dimensioned plans on the next page

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2383
slide rest, lathe
Scribe a scale into the face of plate J, after making an index notch on the edge of plate K.
Set the compound slide at accurate angles with a protractor, tapping lightly with a hammer
and clamp tight. Use the square edge of the protractor to guide the scriber. To use the scale,
be sure the cross slide is clamped at right angles to the headstock axis
compound slide rest, continued
the clamps, place a strip of fairly heavy paper
between each gib and its retaining strip, to pro-
vide clearance for easier assembly. Gib setscrews
will take up the slack when the unit is in use. At
each point where a setscrew touches a gib, drill
a recess about 1/16" deep and not much wider
than the screw tip. These prevent lateral shifting.
Position the screws to provide access when the
rail sections are assembled.
You can use either two 8-32 bolts, or one
bolt plus a 1/8" steel pin, to fasten each rail to
each end support. When predrilling the supports,
use a No. 29 (tap-size) drill for the bolt hole;
then, after the supports have served as boring
templates, enlarge these holes with a No. 19 bit.
Bolt heads are countersunk.
To prepare the bearing for the 10-in. feed
screw, ream out a piece of 1/4" iron or brass
pipe until it's round and smooth. Take pains to
see that the end of this pipe is square with end
support G when screwed tight. Drill and thread
the brass block so the feed screw is parallel to
the top and bottom plates A and J. At the point
where the screw rotates within the pipe bearing,
coat it with solder or babbitt to fill the threads
and increase the diameter. Then file until the
screw rotates snugly inside the bearing. Two thin
nuts, jammed together behind this soldered sec-
tion, ride against the inside end of the bearing.
The central hole in end support B should be
large enough for these nuts to turn inside it.
In the photos and drawings, different hand
controls are shown on the two feed screws. The
choice between a two-handled crank or a hand-
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wheel is not critical, unless you plan to add
micrometer scales.
Making the compound slide. This—the pivot-
ing half of the accessory—is of the same basic
construction as the cross slide, but on a smaller
scale. As shown in Fig. 3, its bottom plate (K)
pivots on plate J of the cross slide, for angular,
settings. The pivot stud is threaded into plate J
and passes through a bushing press-fitted in
plate K; it protrudes enough to permit the use of
a washer and nut..
The completed unit shown was built for an
11" lathe. The top surface of the tool-post-slot
strips (T) should be about 1 in. below the cen-
ter line of the lathe headstock spindle. Thus,
overall height of the accessory shown is about
4-1/2" from the lathe bed. The two mounting
blocks (D) can be dimensioned to bring the
toolpost slot to the proper height for various
lathes. These blocks are simply 2-in. wide steel
bars or strips bolted to the bottom of plate A;
length and spacing should be whatever is re-
quired for secure fastening with lathe-bed bolts.
Test the unit by turning an easy material such
as wood. Oil any moving parts, and be sure all
bolts are tight. Adjust gib screws to take up any
play in the slides. At first, the feed screws may
turn hard because of slide tightness and rough-
ness. Rails not equipped with gibs (which add
stiffness) may have a tendency to spring. In the
unit shown, rail-stiffening bolts were installed
midpoint on the fixed rails of the compound
slide. They can be seen in the photo on page
2382, and are given as an optional detail.
If there's excessive chatter when turning
metal, check the unit for play. Grasp the tool-
 A standard tool post for a 9-in.
metal-turning lathe clamps regular
toolholder. Point of the bit normally
should be on the center line of the lathe
spindle. Much work requires no microm-
eter collars on feed screws, but they
are easily added, as shown at the right

post and try to rock it in various directions. If

chatter persists once play has been removed, you
may have to lower the spindle speed. Wood
lathes often have a minimum speed that is too
high for large-diameter metal turning.
You can do a lot of turning without feeling
the need for the angular scale shown in Fig. 4, or
for micrometer collars on each screw to gauge-
feed in small fractions of an inch. These features lathe chuck, wrap a strip of paper around the
may be added later. The collar shown (Fig. 5) is chuck body and trim it to exact circumference.
1-1/4" diameter and 1/2" long. Its matching Remove this band, divide the circumference into
index ring, setscrewed to the bearing pipe, is 125 equal parts, tape it around the chuck again,
about the same size. Each turn of the screw and provide a fixed pointer for the division lines.
moves the tool 1/16 (or .0625) inch. Since the Use a pointed tool in the compound slide rest to
micrometer collar is divided into 125 equal scribe equivalent lines on the face of the collar.
spaces, each division indicates a tool movement
of .0005 in.—two divisions, .001.
One way to graduate the collar: clamp it in the

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