Thread: Woodthread Tap and Die set

I admire these tools , they look like they would work well .
Any one ever used them ?

https://www.fine-tools.com/gewind.htm#ziel301855

Rob

They look very well made auscab but at that price makes them pretty much out of the budget for most woodworkers especially seeing as you'd probably want two or three sizes.
I'd prefer to make my own for a fraction of the price. There are numerous guides and youtube videos on the 'net that show you how.
These ones here are a lot cheaper if you decided to buy a shop made one.
http://www.mikestools.com/800-1008-T...2-x-8-tpi.aspx

Stewie

Stewie, every one is always on about Cheaper Cheaper .
Me included

Yes they are pricey , 154 Euro is $226 AU + postage ? But that's for two tools though , the Tap and the Die.
For a quality tool, I think that is a good price . and one that I couldn't make myself.
Out of all that is on offer with this type of tool this looks the best to me .
That one you show does not have a 5/8ths from what I see.
I can see for a hobby use it's an outlay that wont pay back possibly, But if you compare it to paying a competent tradesman with the right tool to do the job??


Ive seen a few links where the die is made , but what about the Tap ?

Want two or three sizes ?
NO,, I want the whole set in a Mahogany brass bound box

Rob

Originally Posted by Stewie D

They look very well made auscab but at that price makes them pretty much out of the budget for most woodworkers especially seeing as you'd probably want two or three sizes.
I'd prefer to make my own for a fraction of the price. There are numerous guides and youtube videos on the 'net that show you how.
These ones here are a lot cheaper if you decided to buy a shop made one.
http://www.mikestools.com/800-1008-T...2-x-8-tpi.aspx

Stewie

Stewie, these are sold by Carbatec, I have the 3/4" one, for a lot less than they now sell them for. Poorly made, need to be sharpened, and difficult to make work properly (of course might be the operator!). I have a vintage Peugeot 25mm metal thread box and tap similar to the German one that I have not yet tried - very solid and I think will work very well. The 62mm version looks pretty good for making wooden vises!

Hans Brunner might have a 5/8" box and tap, or there is one here http://www.toolbazaarcatalogue.co.uk...SCREWBOXESTAPS

Cheers
Peter

A vintage Peugeot , I got the same here .
Only one of though .

I think one difficult thing about repairing chest of drawer knobs is the tap needs to bottom out in the hole of the knob , or get very close to the end and from what I can tell these type of taps wont do that . It may be that two taps are needed and one gets cut short to finish the hole ?

I have a 1/2inch Tap and die set that I purchased from Carbatec. Its ok. The 5/8th is not avaliable from Carbatec, Ive looked at the one made in Germany, ex quality. Looked at old ones on an English website, looks good. But wondering if anyone in Aus would have one for sale? I need one that can turn a 5/8th thread close to a shoulder.

I visited a retired carenter/engineer recently who was making some fascinating stuff in his little 2 car garage, and he showed me his technique for cutting wood threads. He had a screwcutting lathe, and mounted a 1/4" router in the toolpost, in such a way that its axis was at the same height and parallel to the works' axis. He had made out of High Speed Steel from broken taps and such like little single point tools to fit in this router. they were about 3" long with the cutting tip ground by hand right at the end, and with these he could cut threads to fit as well as he wanted; cutting both the matching internal and external threads with the same tool.

If you were in a postition to go down this road it would only need the simplest old lathe which could probably be bought for the price or maybe even less than a single sized set of shiny tools from that firm mentioned above.

There are quite a few ways to get a thread on a piece of wood, but many require a deal of mucking about, or extra gear like a screw-cutting lathe. Most of the home-made solutions would certainly not suit someone like Rob, who has a living to make.

Taps are reasonably easy to make, if you have access to a decent metal lathe & know how to drive one. As I keep saying, taps for wood don't have to be super hard, I've got several made from mild steel & they cut excellent threads in woods like Ironbark, & show no signs of stress after plenty of use. Just about any wood, from Balsa up, will take good internal threads (into side-grain, don't even think about tapping into end grain for most woods!). So taps aren't usually a bother. Note that many European & British taps for wood use threads with a 90 degree included angle, whereas the Carbatec variety use about 60 degrees. Not sure if there are any advantages in one or the other, I've used both & there seems to be little difference. Wooden threads need to be more truncated & a bit sloppier than metal threads to allow for seasonal movement. In practice, it doesn't seem to be much of a problem, though, I just make my screws a little looser if the wood is very dry. So far it has worked, or I've been very lucky - I have dozens of wooden-screw clamps and only one or two get a bit tight during prolonged wet weather.

Screws are the more difficult part of the exercise. We don't have many native woods that respond well to the 'traditional' threadbox, and the ones I have found are non-commercial species, like Bush Cherry (Exocarpos), for e.g.. Too many of our hardwoods are full of silica, which takes the edge off the cutter in a few revolutions, and you end up with a chewed-up mess. If you can get your hands on Apple, Desert Ash, or Maple, they are good threaders.
But sharpening & re-setting cutters is not easy, so I gave up on them many moons ago.

However, I like the idea of making screws from very hard woods. Many of our bone-hard woods make very durable screws (though some are too brittle & the threads tend to break off in use). Some wooden bench screws I made over 20 years ago are still in pristine condition after lots of heavy use. I think the most practical way to thread these sorts of woods is to utilise high-speed carbide cutters, so my solution is to use home-made jigs for my router. These work very well, but can be fussy to set up. However, once you have it working, you can cut a pile of screws in a very short time:

jig on router red.jpg

The principle is very simple - there is a threaded part which pulls the blank past the cutter at the right pitch, once the land is cut & enters the nut. The piece in front of the nut is a pilot to hold the blank steady as it goes past the cutter: thread jig open red.jpg

A bloke I know made a screw-cutting device for wooden threads that used substitutable screws of different pitches to drive the blank past a router cutter - a simplified screw-cutting lathe. This was more trouble to make than my crude jigs, but was much easier & quicker to set up. Its drawback was that it was limited to the length of the machine, but could cut threads right up to a shoulder. My jigs can accept screws of any length, but I have to screw the threaded piece out, pull the pilot piece off, & re-thread the screw, to cut a thread right to a shoulder.

Ian, when cutting threads on a shaft, do you soak the end that you want to thread in linseed oil to soften the timber to stop the threads from tearing out? If you do, do you then wash the threaded ends in mineral turps to remove the oil?

After looking around for quite sometime, I bit the bullet and bought a 1 1/4" set from Carbatec yesterday. However, I do like the quality of the German version, but not the price.

Why can't we get some of the metal workers here to make up some sets? If the pricing is right, I would consider buying a set.

Originally Posted by David N

Ian, when cutting threads on a shaft, do you soak the end that you want to thread in linseed oil to soften the timber to stop the threads from tearing out? If you do, do you then wash the threaded ends in mineral turps to remove the oil?

David, the short answer is 'no'. I read waaay back, in my early threading days, about using oil, & I tried it, & ended up with an almighty mess & worse threads than with the wood dry. Pre-oiling before cutting threads is probably of some use with certain woods when using a threadbox - can't speak from experience because I gave up on them early in the piece. But I can say it certainly did not help with the router method & the wood I was threading!

I do soak the finished screws in Danish oil, allow them to dry thoroughly, then wax them, using a toothbrush to work the wax well into the threads, & polish off the excess. This helps smooth running, and is also some insurance against glue getting spilled or dripping onto the threads. So far, I've not had any disasters in that regard. I would hesitate to use a slow-drying oil like linseed, because the oil needs to be thoroughly dry before trying to use it, or the screw will bind & may even lock up irretrievably. That could take a very long time with linseed, unless you add driers, and the more viscous oils may still leave a sticky residue - the watery Danish soaks in much better.

There are some woods that I know thread well with the threadbox, but so many of the Aussie woods you might want to work with aren't so cooperative. After I'd written my post above, I remembered Frank Weissner had an article on wooden threads in AWR, must be at least 10 years back. Frank manages to thread Mountain Ash successfully with a threadbox, so that's another one that will work. They are very good threads, too, I've seen his work close-up.

Even with woods I know to be normally good for threading, I strike the occasional piece which refuses to cooperate. They will either chip badly, or big chunks fall out because of internal faults in the wood. A few chips & small faults won't affect the function, but whole sections of thread breaking away rather spoils it....

Cheers,

Originally Posted by cava

.......Why can't we get some of the metal workers here to make up some sets? If the pricing is right, I would consider buying a set.

Cava, the time it would take to make taps individually would probably push the price well above what you think is 'right'. You need to cultivate a metal worker who is prepared to work for an exchange of skills, or a suitable beverage bribe.

If you are really keen, you could try this. My first large wooden screws were made using a very Heath-Robinson tap. I turned a blank & chased a thread on it with a home-made thread chaser. I tapered the first inch & a half of thread off, then drove in 6 or so 14G steel screws which I sawed off & filed into cutters to match the thread behind each one, & dug out a bit of a hole in front for chip clearance: Wooden tap.jpg

It actually works, and I made a threading jig for the router & tapped several benches with it. But it is very slow due to the poor chip-clearance, & needs to be backed out constantly to clear it. I wouldn't tackle Ironbark with it, but it can handle Vic. Ash ok....

Cheers,

Hi Ian,

Perhaps you are correct regarding the price, and also perhaps it may have been slightly naive of me to assume that custom made sets would be economical.

However, I was hoping that if a few people got together, a full set of 1/2"-1 1/2" could be had cheaper than Carbatec's pricing. And the quality may be better, to handle our Australian hardwoods.

Oh well, back to dreaming.