In article ,
Harold & Susan Vordos wrote:

"Vincent Coppola" wrote in message
. com...
snip------

Actually I think I had the compound set wrong. To start with, my
threading tool is made from drill rod. I got the idea from the 7x10
minilathe post on yahoo some time ago. Anyway the suggestion was to
get the same size rod as my boring tool holder, in my case 3/8" and
then turn a disk on one end. Make it a 60 degree angle on each
shoulder. Then grind off the top and bottom of the disk to form two
cutting tools. This is what I have been using.

There used to be (and may still be) commercial tools made like
this, with only one ground notch (about 90 degrees to start with), and
as it wears, you rotate the tool a few degrees and grind the top flat
again. You get a large number of re-grinds before there is insufficient
tool left to continue to work.

I seem to remember that the grinding was below the centerline,
so the relief was naturally formed, and the tool was raised to bring the
tip back to center height.

[ ... ]

coarse threads in tough materials. Aluminum is usually pretty forgiving,
as is leaded brass.

The latter is probably the best thing to learn threading on.
Then go to other materials after you get things working right. (And
leaded brass works well for optical threads anyway.) Aluminum can be
very nice to thread, or be very nasty, depending on the alloy and the
hardness. The kind of aluminum you would find in Home Depot would be
very gummy, and difficult to do a clean thread on.

If you're still not clear on this, lets keep talking. Threading, in order
to be right, must be approached properly. We'll get you there, just keep
asking questions. If you can post a picture of your setup it would help a
lot! That way we'd get past differences in descriptions.

Agreed -- with one caveat. *Don't* post the image to the
newsgroup. Some news severs block any binary attachments to discussion
newsgroups (such as this), so not everybody would see it. Instead, send
the image to the dropbox (visit http://www.metalworking.com/ and click
on the [ About the Dropbox ] bar to read how to do it.

Try to avoid spaces and punctuation characters (especially
things like '&', '*', '/', '\' and '?') in the filenames, as they make
problems on different computer systems. Just plain letters, and either
a '-' or a '_' in place of spaces works well.

Once they are there (with a ".txt" file to describe what you
have uploaded), post here with the url for the dropbox

again -- http://www.metalworking.com/

and the names under which the files are stored. (remember that on some
systems the case of the letters matters, so keep that right, too, so
people can find the images.)

Good Luck,
DoN.

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