A Post or is it a Rest

A little while back Tom The Village Carpenter AKA Scribbly Gum off the www. woodworkforum.com posted this article in his blog. In his blog he stated  "I really must invest in a longer tool rest one of these days "

Tom did invest, in that he gave\past onto me all his old dark room equipment which my daughter now has. So I made that new tool rest approx 320 mm long and post is 160mm all 3/4 bar thanks to Pat who supplied a couple of big old bolts. I had to hand machine the shaft of the post down to 19mm to suit Tom's banjo on his Nova 1200, I did this on the wood lathe at slowest speed using a HSS turning tool worked a treat. One day I might invest have the room to as well in a metal lathe.