I made my own rest from a pin found in somebody's tow hitch I have changeable plates at 45, 60 and 90 degree angles for grinding tools.
Can you expand on that George please!!!!
Delayed answering because I thought I was going to get home and would have taken a picture for you of the various jigs I made for this sander, still away for a while yet so I will try to explain and drew a little sketch in paint please forgive my inability to do both.
Its a simple setup but you must remember that I work in the bedroom of someone else's house so have no space to spare and must keep machinery to a minimum, that's why I like to visit people and use their stuff when ever possible.
The pin from a Bedford TK tow bar fitted my banjo perfectly so it got lost in the mud and found after we had stopped looking for it.
Now I feel I have to explain how I knew it would fit so snug, I had used my tool rest to straighten a ring I wear that had gone out of round, a bit of gentle persuasion got it to fit over the stem perfectly and reshaped it. I happened to have said ring about my person when the idea popped into my small brain that I could use the banjo and a jig to go with the disc sander I had on my lathe.
Later in the week I saw some channel in a garden from some windows being exchanged, this would be ideal for my purpose. The window fitter was reluctant to part with it as it is alluminium and worth scrap value to him, this is where my time in the diplomatic corps came in useful, a persuasive poke in the eye worked wonders and I had my much needed channel. I selected the sliding parts which have a profile that one fits inside the other nicely and slides back and forth with ease an little or no play.
A visit to a friendly workshop and good man Brian used his metal turning lathe to shape and thread the pin and join it to the channel for me. Hopefully you will get the idea from my silly drawing that one channel turns upside down and fits in the other making a sliding box section.
As a box it is used as a tool rest which is twice the size of the one that came with the lathe. It is also at 90 degrees to the sander when fitted so sanding can be squared. remove sander add a Jacobs chuck and a router bit and slide a piece of wood across it and shape wood for boxes etc.
A piece of Arris rail cut in half lengthways gives me my 45 degree honing guide when fitted to another channel inserted upside down. The other half propped on a couple wedges does the 60 degree guide. Take the inner channel out and turn it end on to sander, slide pen blanks up inside channel to the sander for accurate squiring.
I have in effect a small milling lathe with a 360 turntable giving me X, Y, Z. Axis from the tool post.
I hope that load of old twaddle has explained what really is a neat mod for me.
