The Home Machinist!

I just finished up a batch of 8-32 brass knruled thumbscrews on my little Rambold turret lathe, and I'm putting together an article for HomeShopTech on the process.



Meanwhile, I also tested out the movie function on my camera for the first time and posted a small video on YouTube. I ran the camera on a tripod and basically reached around it to do the lathe work.

I hadn't even considered that the camera would also record sound, so the background music was what I had on in the shop at the time.

Enjoy:
Rambold's Further Adventures

Hello Frank,

I've been pondering a bar puller for use with my turrett.

I have six stations and only use five, so a puller would fit right in. The next station after the puller would be the indexing stop to push it back to the proper length.

Edit:
For that matter, there is no reason a simple adjustale bar puller jaw could not be incorporated into the index stop.

Hello Frank:

Can you tell me (us) about the device used in the video to thread the screws?

Thanks,

Rick

Awesome little lathe Frank !!

Almost a mini CNC

I'm sure I'll never be able to justify/afford the automatic thread chaser thingy.

I am interested in the tool that cut the OD of the area to be threaded to size in one pass. I think I've heard of them but can't think what they are called or how they are made.

Paul

This is exciting new stuff for me. I bought the die head off eBay some months ago, and this is the first time I've used it, or seen one in use. It's pretty intuitive to set up, so I'm sure to use it more in the future.

The head contains four full form thread cutting inserts, each of which have about a half inch of threads on them. Theoretically, you need a set of inserts for each thread pitch and diameter, but there is a fair range of diameter adjustment. On the next job I cut 6-32 threads with the same 8-32 jaws.

I'll have bigger pix on the HomeShopTech site soon, but here are some previews:

First, you close the head to the cutting diameter, by moving the red knob, bringing in the jaws:




Here's the head, ready to cut:



I have my hand behind the head to press it forward, simulating its action at the end of the cut when the turret has hit its end stop and the front of the head springs forward a bit, like this, opening the jaws to clear them for retracting the head:

Frank, your having to much fun. I thnk I am going to have to come out there and help you.

For those interested, I just put together a little article for my Web site, detailing the tooling and operation:

http://www.frets.com/HomeShopTech/Produ ... crews.html

Good stuff Frank!!

Thanks for posting it

Frank, you're the man!

Amazes me the amount of creativity that you posess

Thanks for the close up shots on the webpage. I can see how you did that tool to cut the major diameter in one go. Old hat for some but I had not seen that anywhere before. If I can duplicate that thing in a couple sizes it could be very handy for making small screws for the steam locomotive I've (very slowly) building.

Paul