I'm new to lathes but have a need to do work on about 5/8 inch dia wood rods. I will need to be able to cut threads at the end of the rod. Never having done this before, should I be looking at a small hobby type of lathe to do this manually or opt for a machine that can auto-feed and cut the threads? Not having done this before, I'm thinking doing this by hand isn't the consistent way to be doing this? But maybe I'm wrong...maybe it can be done well manually?
My budget is around 500.00 USD.
Thanks for any advice...
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Gerry
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A regular wood lathe would also be unsuitable; there's no way you could ensure the threads were accurate. A 7x10 mini lathe would probably work to some extent; I think the through hole is about 5/8" (although it could be a little smaller, depending on the chuck) - or, as Ger suggests, something like that Beall jig, which accommodates several sizes of round stock.
[FONT=Verdana]Andrew Werby[/FONT]
[URL="http://www.computersculpture.com/"]Website[/URL]
I'd like to be able to cut the threads on my own lathe vs having to buy another specialized thread cutting kit. The video did answer my question: hand feeding and turn the rod looks like a hit or miss situation. Maybe you just need practice some to be good at that. It looks like a lathe with an auto-feeder would work the best but I'm sure that adds to the cost of the lathe.
The mini-lathes can cut threads, but for most pitches you'd need to invest in a set of change gears. Little Machine Shop has a handy calculator to figure out which gears you need in which positions to make a particular thread, depending on the pitch of your leadscrew: https://littlemachineshop.com/refere...ange_gears.php
[FONT=Verdana]Andrew Werby[/FONT]
[URL="http://www.computersculpture.com/"]Website[/URL]