On Jul 5, 7:14 pm, "DoN. Nichols" wrote:
On 2008-07-04, Gunner Asch wrote:

On Fri, 4 Jul 2008 09:42:55 -0700 (PDT), woodworker88
wrote:

On Jul 3, 5:24 am, Gunner wrote:

[ ... ]

I don't have a problem with building thehandwheelassembly, I just
don't want to do the ID threading on the collet drawtube itself.
Looks like I should be able to find a used or broken part that I can
adapt.

[ ... ]

single point threading of the draw tube oddly enough, doesnt seem to
give as good a fit as does a tap for draw tubes, which I always found
really odd, being thin wall tubing. Most draw tubes are tapped.

A 6-jaw chuck will give less distortion of the drawtube during
threading, and if you've got a large enough collet (unlikely, since you
are trying to make a drawtube to fit collets to your lathe, and the
drawtube is always larger then the maximum collet capacity. :-)

I've not cut threads in the drawtube itself, but I have cut both
male and female threads in an extension to a drawtube when I went from
2-1/4x8 spindle nose to L-00 (needed about a 1" extension for that. :-)

Enjoy,
DoN.
Sounds good to me. It just so happens that there is a 8" 6-jaw chuck
on the Colchester 15" lathe at work. Our tooling cabinet has a good
selection of really large taps, so maybe there is a 1 1/4"-20. I
believe the spec for the thread is more complicated than that (I
always see it called out as some decimal diameter) but perhaps
something will work. I can compare the thread to a new Hardinge
collet.
Thanks for the advice