Hiya,

Hello all

Ken has been making the GM5 for quite some time now and we have many happy customers. Ken is a turning enthusiast first and foremost and has been warmed by your delightful correspondence. 

We have studied the proposed GM6 steady rest, and have decided it would not be economical to produce due to some fiddly details of getting some pieces millimeter perfect. It is a great design however would cost very significantly more for not a great deal of return.  However we do not wish to disappoint, and as such all steady rests will now be manufactured from oak wood due to the ability to purchase much finer prime grade stock. The oak version will be the only version available, and will be dubbed the 'Garner Mark 5.5 universal'. When it came to softwood we frequently found it difficult to pick good knot free stock, a frustrating and wasteful process. There is however a consequence of making the the GM 5.5 out of oak: ordering materials will require batch production of several units at once. For this reason, and for simplicity, we have decided to offer a universal model instead of tailoring each model to your particular lathe. Each GM5.5U will come with 3 spaces pieces to fit the 3 most common sizes of lathes.

As you can see the 280mm is the base model and so does not require a spacer.

Please note it this is complete jibberish please read this page by clicking here :) 

 In the event of your lathe being somewhere in the middle, ie 325mm, we are confident the GM5.5U will be close enough with the closest spacer as to not matter - the sliders will slide a little further than necessary to always reach the middle of the turning centre. There will be no detriment to the GM5.5's performance.

Please contact us here with any questions. We like to hear from you.

Thank you and good turning.

2. We would like to make it out of oak for aesthetic reasons - to achieve a finer finish than is possible with redwood pine.  - this involves finding a good reliable source without huge minimum orders or delivery costs.

Recently Ken has made a variety of sizes upon request including pretty common 310mm, huge 400mm and a tiny 220mm model. Please contact us with any unusual requests as the steady rests can be made to order whatever size you like. We don't recommend anything over 400mm as the costs and weights become unmanageable - and remember that whatever the size of the lathe, you need a steady rest which is smaller than you swing. It is easy to use blocks to raise the turning centre of a steady rest but impossible to lower it.

Here is the piece of ash tree cut down in February, rough turned in April.

Here is the final version after leaving it to dry for 6 or 7 months in my workshop. So far so good on the split front. Sorry about the background. I wanted to take a picture quickly. It ended up 14 inches across, and just 6 inches deep. I had to make a bigger Longworth chuck to finish the bottom.

Projects:

Ken has been working on three Large Ash bowl blanks. I sourced the wood from a friend who'd cut down the 30 -35 year old Ash tree to keep her neighbors happy. Using the chainsaw I cut the logs into blanks. Skillfully, I found an embedded nail and snapped the chain...The first wooden bowl was turned green, the second seasoned. After a year of drying, it was significantly harder! Ken went on to find 3 screws and two nails in one of the blanks which didn't fare a lot better in the end. See next paragraph.

Ken also purchased a set of number 3 jaws for his Oneway chuck to cope with larger tenons on very large bowls. I think he was alarmed after the last project shot across the workshop 'Dustbuster style' before colliding with the window. Remarkably no damage... to the window, the bowl was later scrapped anyway because it had gone too far out of round.

Pictures to follow!

I have been making magic wands in the Harry Potter cum proper woodturning style. I hope to have pictures of them here soon.      

Ken