Looking for thread cutter attachements

Chuck Ellis

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Location
Tellico Plains, Tennessee
I have sorta/kinda learned to chase threads by hand and have a set of tools to so do, but in a lot of the books I look at, I see a small cutter wheel that is used for cutting threads and suspect the threads might be more consistent than those I cut by hand.

I've done a search for a mfgr or source, but haven't found anything to date.. anyone have an idea of where I might find these and what their costs might be... on my limited budget, I may have to stick with the hand chasing and work on perfecting the technique.
 
I have this, what I was wondering about is the round wheel like cutter that I see in some of my magazines and books.

I can get a relatively decent thread on this, but not as consistently as I would like. Still need more practice.
 
There are other options, like the following from Dieter Schmid:

gewind4a.jpg

This isn't what I'm looking for either.. this looks like a tap/die set.

The tool looks like a router bit that appears to fit onto an screw drive attachment that cuts the threads. The cutter is a multi-point star like tool.
 
Check out Bonnie Klein's site. I know she markets her design thread cutter she uses on her small boxes. I think Best Woodworking also sells one. I looked at them but I think they were around $300.
 
That's closer, but the cutter fits the lathe and not the router... but I didn't look on Beall's site.. may have to check there.

A friend, who is a member of my woodturning club and is also a machinist, has made his own lathe with thread cutting features. It is a complex device that self-feeds. The cutter wheel turns at quite a high speed. This is necessary to make smooth threads.
I believe if you find what you are looking for your wallet will take a very hard hit.
 
A friend, who is a member of my woodturning club and is also a machinist, has made his own lathe with thread cutting features. It is a complex device that self-feeds. The cutter wheel turns at quite a high speed. This is necessary to make smooth threads.
I believe if you find what you are looking for your wallet will take a very hard hit.

Probably not, I'm very very close to my wallet..you must remember that I'm for Scot/Irish descent with a Hebrew origin name.:D:D
I'm thinking I may just need some more practice on the hand chasers.
 
Here's what Dale was referring to on Bonnie Klein's site:

[Klein Threading Jig]

While researching the same topic a few weeks ago, I ran across a similar offering from a different outfit. I believe it was less expensive, but not drastically so. I'll see if I can dig that info up again.

BTW, even though Bonnie's jig mounts to the lathe, it's more of a convenience than a necessity. I watched the video that Bonnie put out (10+ years ago) about her jig. In the video she used a standalone prototype (which she worked on for 2 years) to show the principles involved. She credited someone else with giving her the idea of developing a lathe-mounted version.

Mounting the jig on the lathe means that you can take advantage of a sturdy, pre-aligned setup which uses the chuck that already fits on your spindle, etc etc. But OUCH ... what a price!

Lately, I've started looking into [the Beall system] more. It uses your router instead of your lathe, but it costs less than half the price of the Klein. As you might expect, it's also less versatile ... but it may be able to handle dowel/hole sizes smaller than the Klein jig's minimum.

Sigh ... choices, choices. :(
 
If you want to make one for yourself, here you go...........

>> Craft House Mana <<

This fellow is an amazing guy, he does so much with so few tools, I've talked to him on the phone, but I've not yet had the chance to meet him.

These are his "English" pages, so forgive the sometimes odd translations.

Cheers!

PS here is a >> link << to his drawing of the jig, it give the various dimensions etc.
 
You guys are WAY over thinking it. First off you already have the stuff you need to make threads, you just don't know it. You don't even need a lathe or a special bit.

What you need is a wooden jig set up that uses threaded rods to thrust the part forward past a spinning bit. That is on the X axis. (left to right) The threaded rod thread pitch is ultimately what you get for threads. Want a fast acting acme thread at 16 threads per inch...get a fast acting acme threaded rod at 16 threads per inch. Want a fine thread, you get a fine threaded rod.

On the other end of the jig you build something similar, but the jig adjusts via threaded rod on the Y axis. (In and Out) It doesn't matter what you use for threads here because this just adjusts the cutting bit so that it cuts the right size thread depth on whatever diameter wooden shaft you are using.

Of course on that Y axis cross slide jig you need a motor and a bit and the best thing for that is a Dremel tool because the darn thing spins so fast. For a bit you grind down one of those Dremel tool multispur bits on the sander, but do it so that you get a pointed bit with 60º bevels.

Once you have adjusted the dremel so that it cuts the right depth of thread, you smoothly advance the wooden part you want threaded forward past the rotating dremel bit. In doing so a perfect male thread is formed.

To cut the female thread its kind of backwards. You have to adjust the dremel bit so that it is cutting on the inside. Because of that, you thread the bit back towards you to cut a deeper thread, and away from you to cut a thinner thread...opposite of how you did the male part.

Simple. No lathes. No big HP routers. No fancy cutting bit and you can make any thread on any sized part you want with stuff you already have in your shop.
 
If you want to make one for yourself, here you go...........

>> Craft House Mana <<

This fellow is an amazing guy, he does so much with so few tools, I've talked to him on the phone, but I've not yet had the chance to meet him.

These are his "English" pages, so forgive the sometimes odd translations.

Cheers!

PS here is a >> link << to his drawing of the jig, it give the various dimensions etc.

Stu,
You are right, that is a great site.. now all I need is some metal working tools, and maybe a few skills wouldn't hurt. I think I'll just practice my hand chasing some more.. I bid on a contract recently to do 200 or 300 screw top boxes and in learning to do a prototype, got a little competent with the threading tools, but didn't keep it up as I don't seem to have gotten the contract.

Being in Japan, have you seen or tried the Kokeshi (I think that's correct spelling) dolls... they look interesting and a little bit of a challenge.. it's number 169 on my list of things to try. :D
 
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