I hope this this is only an academic discussion (with Murphy as a constant companion one never knows) but I would like to ponder how I would utilize a steady rest. The only surfaces I oud use for the steady rest to \"ride\" on would be either the front or rear barrel plates. The front barrel plate obviously has to be toward the chuck. In order to have any sort of concentricity I used the main shaft with ad- hoc spacers to take up the length of the non present carrier block ( or in my case the non existent cartridge carrier and bolt carrier.) This gives me a assembly to turn that has less than 0.002 in of runout. ( the chuck end has been dialed in and the other end is supported with a live center in the hole which was used to turn the main shaft. Where would I place the steady rest?
There was little observable radial movement in the rear barrel plate but any that did exist was in quadrature to the cut.
I believe my main problem was the shape of cutting tool to tolerate the interrupted cut. I originally selected a tool with a small but stiff finger shape. This was done because I first attempted to use a spacer for only the cartridge carrier. I really did not have sufficient room to work so I replaced it with a longer spacer to take up the space of both my carrier block pieces.
Any and all suggestions as to what to do \"NEXT TIME\" are solicited and appreciated.
