14mm multi-start threading

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Thanks George. Even though I've done a fair amount of tapping by now, I didn't realize that you didn't have to clear the chips every half turn or so. Is that true for all of the commonly used acrylics and ebonite?

Dan
 
Jeff G said:
Thanks George great video...love the 'sound track' too
JeffG
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That's funny. I was wandering what on earth you were talking about so I watched the video again. I watched it once after recording it then once again after uploading it and neither time did I catch the music playing, I guess I'm just so used to it. No problem though, there is no extra charge for the entertainment! Good thing it's over 50 years old, else someone would be calling me wanting their royalties! :biggrin:
 
Nice vid! It's one thing to read conversations about something,
quite another to just watch it being done.. and in real time, too.
 
George,

Do you do anything differently for Polyester Resin? I am having a devil of a time cutting threads in PR! It shouldn't be as hard as it is.....Especially after watching your video.

It is almost like my dies are stripping the PR from the tenon. Might also be that the taps and dies I have are not very good either! They are from HF! I should just break down and get some of the most common threads from a better set!

Thanks! Nice video by the way!!

Fred
 
PTownSubbie said:
George,

Do you do anything differently for Polyester Resin? I am having a devil of a time cutting threads in PR! It shouldn't be as hard as it is.....Especially after watching your video.

It is almost like my dies are stripping the PR from the tenon. Might also be that the taps and dies I have are not very good either! They are from HF! I should just break down and get some of the most common threads from a better set!

Thanks! Nice video by the way!!

Fred
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Fred,

The dozens of members making and selling their home made polyester resin blanks is all over the spectrum from being too gummy to too brittle and anything in-between, so no one answer will apply to polyester resin in general. This is the main reason I shy away from these blanks and make my own.

I have threaded acrylics, alumilite, ebonite and truestone with good results and have never had any of these materials crumble. The first thing comes to mind is that you either cut your tenon too thick and the die is forced to taking larger chunks than it's supposed to OR you cut your tenon too thin and the die is making very shallow threads which you are just destroying as you pass the die over them. The exact same thing could be happening with the tap, either your hole is too large or too small. Please note the amount of pressure I am applying with the die in the video, VERY little pressure is used and that's as it should be. You shouldn't have to force a die foreward, it should just follow it's own freshly cut threads.

I would FIRST have a look at the diameters you are cutting the material to before applying either the tap or the die.

Then, there is always the chance that the polyester you are using IS too brittle and nothing can be done about that other than using some that is not so brittle. Two folks whose resin blanks I thought were just perfect were "It's Virgil" and "CaptG", both of which would thread just fine so look around....... there's good and there's bad then there is even horrible! blanks running around.

Now I've done it..........we'll probably get 100 replies from all those making polyester blanks about how good theirs are! :eek:
 
thewishman said:
Is using the tap pretty much the same? I'm guessing that I need to get a tap handle to turn it properly. Would it work to hold the tap in a drill chuck?
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There are lots of ways to tap and I've tried several, using just a T handle to the wide spanner type handle to chucking the tap in a chuck and using a spring loaded tool to keep a certain amount of pressure on the tap.

After all that, I found that for tapping the soft material we use in pens all you need to do is mount the blank in the collet chuck as shown in the video then put the tap into a Jacobs drill chuck which is mounted in the tailstock.

My tailstock glides on the bed so smoothly that I just advance the tailstock by hand whild grasping and turning the collet chuck as the tap is fed into the blank. Again... don't force it but it really helps to have a tailstock that isn't half rusted to the bed and is real jerky and hard to move.
 
PTownSubbie said:
George,

Do you do anything differently for Polyester Resin? I am having a devil of a time cutting threads in PR! It shouldn't be as hard as it is.....Especially after watching your video.

It is almost like my dies are stripping the PR from the tenon. Might also be that the taps and dies I have are not very good either! They are from HF! I should just break down and get some of the most common threads from a better set!

Thanks! Nice video by the way!!

Fred
Click to expand...

Fred, I have one of those cheap OneHungLo tap and die sets, all they are really good for is cleaning up existing threads. In my experience they are not suitable for cutting nice clean threads in anything. Even though PR is not as hard as steel etc, a good quality sharp HSS tap or die makes a world of difference.
Most of my single tap/die sets cost appreciably more than a whole cheap boxed OneHungLo set of taps and dies.
 
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Texatdurango said:
After all that, I found that for tapping the soft material we use in pens all you need to do is mount the blank in the collet chuck as shown in the video then put the tap into a Jacobs drill chuck which is mounted in the tailstock.

My tailstock glides on the bed so smoothly that I just advance the tailstock by hand whild grasping and turning the collet chuck as the tap is fed into the blank. Again... don't force it but it really helps to have a tailstock that isn't half rusted to the bed and is real jerky and hard to move.
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Sweet! That is about what I was picturing. Thanks for saving me the purchase of yet another tool, George.:smile:
 
BigShed said:
PTownSubbie said:
George,

Do you do anything differently for Polyester Resin? I am having a devil of a time cutting threads in PR! It shouldn't be as hard as it is.....Especially after watching your video.

It is almost like my dies are stripping the PR from the tenon. Might also be that the taps and dies I have are not very good either! They are from HF! I should just break down and get some of the most common threads from a better set!

Thanks! Nice video by the way!!

Fred
Click to expand...

Fred, I have one of those chap OneHungLo tap and die sets, all they are really good for is cleaning up existing threads. In my experience they are not suitable for cutting nice clean threads in anything. Even though PR is not as hard as steel etc, a good quality sharp HSS tap or die makes a world of difference.
Most of my single tap/die sets cost appreciably more that a whole cheap boxed OneHungLo set of taps and dies.
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Thanks! That is what I thought! I will try my triple start and see what results I get.
 
Skiprat posted the coolest little tool ever, back some time ago.
It is a little spring loaded device that keeps constant and uniform pressure on the tap. I ended up making my own little deal, because I couldn't find one like skip's

And YES ERIC they do defecate in coniferous environments, as well as dicidiuos ones! I've seen 'em do it! My question is do they ALWAYS wipe with bunny rabbits? :)
 
PenMan1 said:
Skiprat posted the coolest little tool ever, back some time ago.
It is a little spring loaded device that keeps constant and uniform pressure on the tap. I ended up making my own little deal, because I couldn't find one like skip's

And YES ERIC they do defecate in coniferous environments, as well as dicidiuos ones! I've seen 'em do it! My question is do they ALWAYS wipe with bunny rabbits? :)
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Andy, I was thinking about how I could do a similar thing ....(hadn't figured it out yet though :rolleyes:) .... when I got an email from Little Machine Shop saying their tool special of the week was the Tap guide... I posted a link to it here ..
http://www.penturners.org/forum/showthread.php?t=85238
 
Thank you, Lenny. My home built, center punch conversion only works marginally well. That is EXACTLY what I was looking for and never found it at LMS!

AND A BIG THANK YOU, George for the video. I always pick up something great with your tutitorials! Cutting the chamfer will make this MUCH easier for me. I think that was the missing ingredient!
 
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PenMan1 said:
Thank you, Lenny. My home built, center punch conversion only works marginally well. That is EXACTLY what I was looking for and never found it at LMS!

AND A BIG THANK YOU, George for the video. I always pick up something great with your tutitorials! Cutting the chamfer will make this MUCH easier for me. I think that was the missing ingredient!
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I didn't show or speak of it in the little video but I ALWAYS stop and make sure both shoulders are perfectly square when I turn a tenon for threading. Chamfering the end of the tenon makes starting the die easier but having the end of the tenon square is also important when you go to thread your pen into the cap.

If you don't get the shoulder square where the tenon meets the lower pen body you will really notice it when you screw the pen parts together... THEN it's too late to fix it without taking a chance of lousing up the threads.
 
Lenny said:
PenMan1 said:
And YES ERIC they do defecate in coniferous environments, as well as dicidiuos ones! I've seen 'em do it! My question is do they ALWAYS wipe with bunny rabbits? :)
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Andy, I was thinking about how I could do a similar thing ....(hadn't figured it out yet though :rolleyes:)
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It's pretty easy, Lenny. First you pick up the rabbit with your left hand..
 
I'm almost positive most bears are left handed, here's proof, sorta.....!

I snapped this photo out behind my house recently! :biggrin:


bear-rabbit-poop.jpg
 
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