On Sun, 9 Feb 2020 09:19:36 -0800 (PST), whit3rd
wrote:

On Thursday, February 6, 2020 at 8:14:44 AM UTC-8, Sonny wrote:
More so an update as to what's going on in my neck of the woods.....

A few years ago I bought two antique woodworking tables from the IRS auctions. Each needed some repair. Got one in good working order, specifically the two wood vises needed adjusting and a bit of repair. On the other table, a vise needs a new wooden nut for one of the vises.

The only off-the-shelf way to get a coarse load-bearing screw and nut is 'acme' threaded
stock (there's a variety of hex nuts and barrel (cylinder) nuts to fit. A good wood screw might
have a lignum vitae nut (good for the stresses, and self-lubricating), but that's
an endangered species (and when available, you buy it by the gram...).

Making a new nut of wood is... problematic on several levels, but by taking a mold of the
screw, you can generate a profile for grinding a boring bar... it's do-able for a machine shop
without CNC tooling, and relatively easy with the right scan tools for a computer lathe or mill.

Here is a typical approach for making a wood nut:

https://youtu.be/pCDmwz91phM

A nice Nahmist approach, but do you really think that the people who
made wooden nuts in the 1700s had routers and allthread?

By hand:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJqzErHyxPg

As for the notion that you need some fancy wood for the nut, it
doesn't have to be any stronger than the screw. If the screw is
maple, maple's fine for the nut.