I called woodcraft. Their universal rest system will not work

what I need is a base, the part that clamps to the frame of the lathe

Jim Gott wrote:

William,

I had that happen to me with my Grizzly (first lathe) also. If I had to guess
I'd say it snapped right where the top of the rest meets the post, right?
That's where they all break. I think it's caused by having a sharp right angle
corner right there where the post meets the top part of the rest, right at the
Tee. Any time you have a sharp corner like that it creates a stress point where
it can snap. You can do several things:
Call Grizzly and have them repair it by replacing the cast post with a steel
post. They did it for me - no charge. They will drill up into the top section
and insert a steel post with a pin. After that you should have no problems.
They'll tell you it'll take about a week. After 3 weeks of waiting I went to
Woodcraft and bought their 6-inch modular toolrest, which is very nice. Soon
thereafter the Grizzly toolrest came back and it has worked fine ever since.
Then I had both a 6 inch and 12 inch rest, which was nice to have. When I
upgraded to my Stubby lathe which takes a 1 inch post all I had to do was buy a
1 inch post from Woodcraft to continue using the 6 inch rest (it's a modular
system and you can get different bars and different posts and they screw
together). The 6 inch rest is very handy for doing smaller stuff like pens or
ornaments. My Stubby toolrest is cast iron also, as are most toolrests, but
it's rounded at that point where the post and the top meet so it spreads the
forces better. It's also a much better casting. The fact that your rest is cast
iron isn't a problem in itself. It's the design and the casting--not the
material--that caused it to fail.

Incidentally, the Jet toolrests are made exactly like the Grizzlys and they
also break. I was at a 6-club competition picnic a few years ago and all the
lathes being used were Jet mini's. The competition was for each team to make a
natural edged bowl in one hour using 6-person teams, each person getting 10
minutes. All the rough blanks were mounted before starting the clock. When the
clock started there were at least 4 broken toolrests in the first 10 seconds,
all broken at that Tee join, all at the exact same spot. Both Jet and Grizzly
obviously figure that it's cheaper to replace broken rests than to redesign
them to make them right.

Take my advice and (1) Get Grizzly to fix the rest with a steel post, and (2)
immediately order the Woodcraft 6 inch rest. You'll be glad you did.


-Jim Gott-
San Jose, CA