Occasionally a job needs to be done which is large enough that it is difficult to comfortably fit safely on the machine. Such was the cylinder on this 3 inch scale Rider-Ericson hot air engine (photo 1). The cylinder bore is only 3 inches diameter, the outer diameter of the cylinder casting about 4.5 inches and the length of the casting about 71 inches. To ensure adequate support when turning the bore a fixed steady would be needed but unfortunately the top of the cylinder casting has a projection which forms the flange for mounting the pivot for the beam describes a diameter of about 8 inches when rotating in the lathe. This is beyond the capacity of the fixed steady that was supplied with the machine. This simple fabricated fixed steady was made for this job mostly out of scrap material and will support just over 10 inches in diameter. In addition a large boring bar was also needed to reach inside this casting.
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