Help please. Timing of the half nut on my lathe

Hi all. I’m attempting single point threading for the first time. I have successfully changed my gears to give me 18 tpi. I have been practicing on alum bar stock , scratch passes at this stage. I have read existing forum topics and plenty of YouTube. With the lathe turned on , and off I have been wiggling the half nut and practicing dropping it into position. I have identified lots of spots on my dial where I can drop the bar to easily engage the half nut so my tool can start doing scratch passes. But every time I back out and try to start again I never end up in the correct spot for my next scratch pass. It seems like the tip of my tool always lands in the middle of my previous cuts
Approaching 2 days now with the same problem despite me watching lots of vids and lots of research. I fear my brain is about to explode soon


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