Construction of the flywheel and pulleys is taking longer than I anticipated, so I thought I’d skip ahead and show the progress that I made on the tool rest earlier today.
I started by sawing the basic shape – I threw in a couple of decorative curves. 
I followed that up by cutting a 1/8” groove in the top and tapping in a piece of 1/8” steel bar stock. I figure that should provide a solid rest for the tools. In Roy’s original plans he doesn’t mention doing this, but I think it will really add to the life of the tool rest. I sawed the line initially, then widened it with my 1/8” chisel until I could tap the bar stock it. I really didn’t want the piece to split so I made sure the fit was just snug.
Afterwards I mounted it to the frame and my tool rest is complete!
The top is secured through the lathe rails and uses a bolt & wingnut to hold it in place. As you can see, I bored a slot through the top to allow for depth adjustments.
As usual, after the build I got to thinking – it would be nice (for more complex turnings) to be able to adjust the height of the tool rest. I’ll have to see about modifying it to allow for that.