I have two stainless steel rods (T-303), one 5/8” and one 1/2” that are 5’ long. I need to trim them to 4.5’, face the ends and then bevel the edges. Would it be safe to hang that much steel rod out the end of the lathe? Is there a good support mechanism for the back end of the rods?
Thanks,
Dave
I’m going to guess that a band saw will get the length as close to 4.5ft as you’ll get on the lathe (because you’ll probably use a measuring tape either way). And you might consider using a belt or disc grinder and a jig to get the ends flat instead of facing, but that all depends on how flat and square you need the end faces.
I don’t know of any way to hold that much stock out the back of the lathe safely.
That’s what I was afraid of. Thanks for the suggestions 
You can have that much stock hanging out of the lathe. There are stands you can setup to control the stock hanging out. If the stock isnt straight it may start to whip, and you’ll need to hit the emergency stop.
If you setup stands and your stock is generally straight, you’ll be fine.
I’ve run a 4’ section on our Colchester. I out up some shields so someone didn’t put their hand near the back end, and padded the inside of the headstock so it wouldn’t start wobbling and hit the sidewalls which would make everything violent and unstable.
A support on the far end helped tremendously as well.
Do we have either a steady rest or a follower rest for the Colchester?
The Colchester is spec’d as 40" between centers, and since you need some space for the saddle in order to do the facing there could be 2’ or more sticking out the headstock end.
Sorry to ask this question, but how much clearance is there next to the headstock end of the lathe? I seem to recall that drill press being fairly close.
BTW, @Juneau79, our tooling isn’t famous for being sharp. You need to see if we actually have suitable tools for stainless before proceeding.
I’ve trimmed 1.5" stainless that was nearly 6 or 8 feet in lenght on the larger shark. If you want I can help you with this on the shark.
Thanks
Freddy
the drill press is close, but unless it’s been lowered (can go back up) the chuck clears the headstock exit on the backside. The toolbox sometimes needs a small shift.
You could try to use a jackstand on the Drill Press table, that may be worth a shot. Try it on low speed first & then gradually raise until you reach a reasonable safe speed.
Thanks everyone. As this wasn’t a high tolerance piece - just basically taking the rough edges off, the KMG grinder in the metal shop took care of it way faster than I could have done it on the lathe. Good to know though. As this was stainless, I wouldn’t be running above 100rpm anyhow and this stuff is pretty rigid at this diameter, so I bet it would have been fine with some end support, but better safe than sorry.
100 rpm on a 5/8ths diameter rod is less than 16.5 sfm - that seems very slow.
Hah, you are very correct. I just glanced at a chart at read the FPS as the RPM. At least I err on the side of extreme caution lol.
Hmmmm, check again, 100 FPS is 6,000 fpm, for a 5/8ths" diameter that’s 36,000 rpm (I doubt even Tim could rewire the lathe so it would go that fast). Be sure to safety face shield, with googles and safety glasses plus a rain coat … cause chips ARE going to FLY and coolant will probably make it over to Laser! 
Hah, it was FPM
I would pay at least 5 dollars to see the Colchester do 36000 RPM. Any takers?
Only through a video camera … remotely. It would probably produce some magnetic anomaly locally. Maybe even anneal the material from the air friction heat.
More likely 100 SFM in 303 stainless with a HSS tool. 5/8" dia. would be 611rpm.
http://www.carbidedepot.com/formulas-turning.htm
https://littlemachineshop.com/reference/cuttingspeeds.php
Yep, or 2-3x that for carbide