supporting piece while facing

Make some vee blocks in aluminum (or if not vee, you can clamp two blocks together and drill and bore them to the proper diameter) and clamp the rod between them. Faceplate or four jaw chuck ought to do it, although I don't know if you'll have trouble keeping them from spreading at the end. A few bolts would hold the blocks together.

Tim

You're right, you can't use a follower rest for a facing cut.

You need a steady rest, or else you need a lathe which can take 3/4" into its spindle like a South Bend 9" or bigger.

You can grind away nearly half of a lathe center, center drill the part, hold the headstock end in a chuck and put the tailstock end on your half center, and face it with a long skinny tool. Watch out for heat buildup. The old-timers said to use white lead when lubricating a part on a dead center, but nylon is supposed to be self-lubricating.

That or hand methods are all I can think of.

Grant

Walter Harley wrote:

Don't know your lathe but can you set the compound angle to 90deg and then use the follower rest? As I understand it, the follower rest mounts on the saddle but isn't affected by the compound slide way. Another way is to mount the cutter in the chuck and the bar on the toolpost. Then you can mill the end flat.

John

You really need a steady rest to do this on a sherline.

Since you have a mill drill, put the stock in a vise and a long endmill in the spindle and mill it flat.

||I hope you folks will forgive my series of newbie lathe questions... please ||understand that I do look in my various books first, before asking here! || ||I have a nylon shaft, 0.75" OD by 6" long. I want to face the end of it, ||with my new Sherline lathe. It appears to need some sort of support, ||because it's quite flexible and when I try to cut it without the support it ||chatters and visibly vibrates. || ||I can't use a follower rest, because as I move the tool slide in, the ||follower moves away. I can't use centers, because after all, I'm trying to ||face the shaft. I don't have a steady rest (yet), but I can't see how it ||would be useful either. || ||Is there a way to do this, and if so, what is it? I suppose if I got ||desperate I could face it in the mill/drill instead, but it would be harder ||to get it square and I'm imagining there's some way to do it in the lathe.

Get a 5.75" piece of 3/4" ID thinwall tubing. Slit it lengthwise Insert nylon and chuck it up.