I also never turn the compound slide for it and also do more or less coordinated action with the two handles. Saves a lot of time on my mini lathe. My thread cutting dies also just plunge in

I hope this Joe chap is not claiming to be some kind of guru who has just found this out. If so he has had his head in a bucket for 50 years. Must have been known to the ancient Egyptians. We have been discussing it on this forum since the internet was invented.

However I suspect the improved tool geometry when angled is a help if you are treadling the lathe.

I leave the topslide parallel, then for every 10 thou of radial feed move the topslide 5 thou (or pro rata). This effectively advances the tool at an angle of 28.57 deg to the radial, so with Whit thread form you get a slight scrape on the left hand edge. If you set the dials to zero at the start, the topslide dial keeps track of where you are.

The effective thread angle is then 53 degrees, I've always wondered whether this is where Mr Whitworth got his 55 from. It works with 60 degree threads as well, just has a bigger 'scrape'

Aways thought the business of setting the top-slide at half thread angle as normal procedure was a wind up on the same level as sending new apprentices to the stores for a tin of elbow grease. What sane person would voluntarily get involved in all the trigonometry needed to recalculate thread depths. I do, however, get the impression it might be popular in America. Which could explain a lot.

Putting the top-slide parallel to the bed and tweaking every so often to clean up the sides appears to add difficulty for no sensible return. Accurate job needs the top-slide set dead parallel. A pain in itself. Need to keep track of the top-slide tweaks as well as the infeeds to get the thread depth and root radius right. So twice the work on things its easy to mis-step on. For me that technique is strictly reserved for when I want an acme or square thread cut dead on for minimal backlash. I know exactly where Duncan is coming from but its a method that has never felt right to me for normal threading.

Doesn't help that on many small lathes you can't leave the top-slide parallel to the bed for all normal work because it tends to argue with the tailstock unless tool stick-out is way too big. Life is to short to keep swinging the topslide around.

Why do folk have to make stuff so difficult!

Easy way was taught to me as the zero-to-zero (often zero-2-zero in online postings) which takes all the tricky bits out. Geo. H. Thomas described it as being the technique preferred by one of his best lathe operators.

It is an angular infeed method but the top-slide can be at any sensible angle a bit under half the thread angle. The lathe does all the trick trigonometry calculations for you.

My top-slides live at 25° off angle which suits both 55° and 60° threads and keeps them nicely out of the way of both tailstock casting and saddle controls. Important considerations with the S&B 1024 which has a properly man sized top-slide that wouldn't be out of place on a lathe of twice the swing and a hefty tailstock too. I frequently go months between changing topslide angle.

Basic zero-to-zero method as described for an external thread, starts with preparing the blank to size and set the tool tip perpendicular in the usual way. Its best to cut a relief groove at the end of the thread.

Then bring the tool tip up to touch the work and set both cross-slide and top-slide dials to zero.

Pull the top-slide back a touch so the tip doesn't scrape the work and move the saddle to bring it into clear air.

Feed the cross slide forward from zero by the desired thread depth and re-set the dial to zero at the new position.

Pull the top-slide back to gain clearance then move in enough for the first cut. I just shift along and touch the stationary job to find top-slide reading that corresponds to zero cut and go from there.

Threading passes are made with the cross-slide dial reading zero. Pull back half a turn, or whatever seems comfortable, for the return then move back to zero for the next pass.

Feed goes on the top-slide.

When you have worked out the spring with both dials on zero you have cut the thread you set-up.

Assuming adequately accurate feedscrews, if your tool tip is to book radius and your infeed is to book it will fit first time.

Generally hand ground tools come out too pointed so you will need to feed in a touch more. Cross-slide or top-slide, you choose, both work and both let you keep track of the little extra being added on. I stick with the top-slide because I use "finish on zero" a lot when setting up general cuts (no DRO in the lathes). Once you have the first part size right re-set the dials to get zero where it ought to be and any repeats will be on size.

Faster to do than to explain. All the set-up is done first using book figures so no mental maths or thinking wasted keeping track of where you are so you can concentrate on how the cut is going and material is behaving.

Internal threads need a bit more attention but the method works just fine.

Clive

Funny, I didn't get that from the video. The point I thought he was making was that both sides of the tool cut when using a 29-degree compound.

Hi Jason,

I suspect this was a typo error?

Regards

Gray,

While the plunge in technique has been advocated for as many years as I have been doing engineering. The plain fact of the matter is, it is down to personal choice.

Having served my apprenticeship with the Dowty Group, (Propellers and Undercarriage, mainly). We apprentices were taught the set-over topslide method, (also advocated by South Bend). Some of the threads were quite coarse pitch, and the materials involved would be problematical to machine using the plunge in method.

Time in my workshop is not a problem so I stick to the tried and tested method I was taught. It is far too easy for me to make a mistake with moving the topslide and cross-slide in unison.

Regards

Gray,

That's the problem with us woodworking types we are used to pointed screws

I'm not sure where the need to use a set over topslide to give more tailstock clearance means you actually have to use it to feed in the tool. Quite possible to set the topslide at any angle and just use the cross slide to feed straight in.

I'm with AdrianR on this one, the message I got from it was that you should be angling the compound so that it takes a light shaving with the left flank of the tool (if cutting in the traditional right to left direction).

Rob

The answer is simple, if your lathe doesn't struggle, then no need to do anything fancy.

If it does, then the over by half for every one in is simple and no trickery needed to calculate the depth of cut. And has exactly the same effect as angling the top slide.

Neil

Hi,

One thing which hasn't come up yet in this discussion is the question of top rake on the cutting tool. While cutting a thread into brass doesn't require any top rake on the tool, if you are cutting steel a zero top rake tool gives a poor surface finish and some top rake needs to be provided. The way this is ground results in a positive rake on the left side of the tool and a negative rake when cutting with the right side of the tool. If the tool is fed straight into the work, one flank will be cut with a positive rake cutting edge while the other flank will be cut with a negative rake cutting edge. They can't both be the optimum configuration. While not completely eliminating cutting with a negative rake, feeding the tool in at half the thread angle will greatly reduce it, particularly as the thread deepens. Could this be the reason why the practice is so widespread?

I have a vague recollection that when I was taught to angle the feed when cutting a thread that the reason given was that it reduced chattering.

The reason I know that zero rake tools give poor surface finishes in steel is that I never got the hang of grinding top rake onto threading tools and used zero rake tools and ran a die nut down the finished threads to tidy them up. The problem went away when I bought a tangential cutting tool system from Eccentric Engineering. Using this system both sides of the tool have positive rake. Once I figured out how to grind the tools using the jig, my steel threads came out with great surface finishes and didn't need tidying up with a die nut.

Regards,

Alan