Help! I can't thread my dowel

Species and Size Matter

Adam Cherubini

>nemo

Choose maple or some such. And make sure the dowel is the exact size of the wooden guideblock (the one that bolts on and has a hole in it). You needn't soak your maple, or beech. Oak will thread nicely too.

Adam

Re: Species and Size Matter

Sam Simpson

>Hi Y'all,

Nemo, I'll second Adams advice, but with an addendum. The size of the dowel is crucial. It must be a loose fit in the tool not just an exact fit. I would suggest you try some scraps of hard wood, starting with some that you might consider undersized, and then work up to the perfect fit for the best cut and neat fit to your female.

Your problems are typical and are always solved by resizing.

Regards Sam Simpson

Roundness matters too

mike recchione

>In addition to size, the roundness of the dowel is also very important. Most dowels that you get at HD are oval. Also check the cutter in the die - it may need to be sharpened.

Tight grained woods are best for this - maple and beech are very good.

A question: What diameter is the screw you're making? In general, the threading kits you can buy at Woodcraft and other WWing stores are probably too fine threaded for a heavy-duty leg vise, even in the larger diameters. They work great for clamps and things, and even for lighter-duty vise-like things, but for a leg vise I'd be thinking more in terms of the 2.5" diameter, 2 TPI beech screw I have in my hand right now.

These can be made by hand, but not with a tap and die (at least not easily). St Roy explains the minimalist procedure in one of his books (I don't remember which one offhand), but essentially it involves making the screw first, by marking out the spiral and cutting it with a backsaw and a chisel. You then use the screw to make the nut. (I could probably explain this better if you're interested. Or just dig up the reference to the Roy book.)

Say - does this sound like it could be the subject of another "challenge"? (I hope I would have better success with this than I did with 1 hour spoons! :-) )

You can do a one hour screw?

Greg B�tit, Vergennes, VT

>

Resisting temptation, resisting, resisting...aah.

mike recchione

>Much better now. This is a family board, after all :-)

Greg, I couldn't even manage a one hour SPOON without breaking two of them! I'd be happy to turn out a decent vise screw and nut in 8 hours of work, and that's probably being very optimistic for the first time. Especially since I'd have to make the cutter for the nut threads as well as everything else. It is something I always wanted to try, though. (Making the screw and nut, not doing it in an hour or even eight.) I got a really cool 2.5 inch screw and matching nut at a garage sale for $10 a few years ago, and always thought that I'd make a mate for it and mount a proper twin screw vise on my next "real" bench. I haven't gotten around to even seriously planning the next real bench yet, so the project is probably somewhere in the remote future. Although my current primary bench top is in the process of pulling itself apart due to poor design, (it was my first woodworking project years ago, and I didn't believe all that stuff about wood movement back then). So it may be sooner than I'd expected.

Hmmm... A Feller that Cant Thread His Dowel....

Doug Evans

>Hi Mike:

I was wondering when someone was going to post about the inference...

Cheers,

D

Re: Resisting temptation, resisting, resisting...a

Greg B�tit, Vergennes, VT

>Well Mike,

I know a poster on this forum who is well into a bench in which he has done exactly that- not the one hour part- he incorporated the screw from a huge old leg vise into his bench.

I'm sure he'll be posting the results. I've been privledged to see the progress shots, and it's a wonderful bench you all will want to see.

Meanwhile, we'll all have to dig up St. Roy's gospel and read up on this. No, not about resisiting temptation- I mean about making wooden threads.

I have hand-carved external threads to bring them closer to the handle of hand screws than the screw box would allow. If I can do this, it's definitly something everyone here can do.

So who is going to be the first to report making a two inch or greater screw 18" long with accompanying nut?

Greg

What a screwy idea! I'll do it.

Nemo Tools

>Mike:

I'd consider taking on the task of making a St. Roy type screw and nut. I need the screw and since my spoon didn't turn out all that well, I could use the carving practice.

I looked up PBS and I looked up St. Roy's site. That guy wrote a lot of books. Anybody out there know which book has the reference on screws and nuts in it?

Thanks,

Nemo

found it

mike recchione

>The Roy Underhill book that this appears in is:

The Woodwright's Workbook: Further Explorations in Traditional Woodcraft

Let me know if you're going to actually do this - I'll bring it closer to the top of my priority list and we can share experiences, insights, etc.