Chis,

A fixed steady is the solution but depending on your lathe they can be rare and expensive to obtain but are essential for this type of job. One option is to fabricate one – there have been a few articles in MEW. I did make one successfully in wood 50 mm thick to give good support. I used maple but any close grained wood will do. I tapped it direct to hold some studs and used t nut for others. It was one piece and slid on to the job.

There are several ways to make the fingers but if you can use you mill it's probably a good method.

Do persevere with your mill, I find turning comes more naturally but milling takes more time to set up and is much less forgiving. Post your milling woes and someone will advise.

Failing all this perhaps there is some one local to you who could bore it for you ?

Good luck

Tony

As a muddle-engineer trying to turn a large bar on a Cowells lathe, this thread is very useful, Thanks fellas, !

Dennis

Will likely end in tears if you take that route. Around the centreline you may be fine but once you start moving into boring away from the centreline it's going to generate too much leverage

Along similar lines to JS's suggestion. Make a split wooden block that can hold the bar to the cross slide by boring it out in position. You can then drill and bore one end, flip it round drill from the other end and if you want a better finish along the length use a between ctrs bar, finally do the other bearing recess. You will want a long bed length for this.