Tuning up the Grizzly G4000 Lathe Steady Rest

Cleaning up the slots in the lathe steady rest to make it easier to use.

In hindsight, I should have done this years ago. However, with use, the original paint that had been jamming up the slots in the steady rest had softened to the point it came out easily. Used a small triangle file to remove any roughness and bits of paint from the bottom, sides and corners of the machined slots. Brass inserts were cleaned up and a light coat of grease in the slots and all the pieces moved easily.

Since changing to the 12L14 steel, the steady rest alone is sufficient for machining the steel shift weights, seen in an earlier video. Before, with hot rolled mild steel, we had to add a live center to hold the material for machining. This saves the time of drilling the center holes on each end of the stock as well as allows for a smaller tooling stick out since there's no longer a need for the carriage to clear the live center.

More to come...
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