Sorby Thread Chaser

[Mark Hubl]

Practice, practice, practice. I have the 20's. I started with PVC and quickly moved to wood. I have done coco, ebony, lignum, osage, and blackwood with success. I would say lignum and blackwood were the best to work with for me. Dry wood is also needed. The stuff I get from wood craft is not dry enough. Not so much for the cutting, but for it holding its shape. When making collar inserts they can change shape quite a bit overnight. good luck.

[Tim Thiebaut]

Mark - I think this is a good part of my problem, I went and checked the Lignum I have this morning and it is soaking wet...so I have no pieces of wood that are dry enough to try this with I guess, and I never even thought about that before when I was trying it. So now I need to find some wood that is truely dry to try working with...I am sure I will have to order it from somewhere, almost everything I get from Rocklers is still wet.

[David E Keller]

Tim, you can try Gilmerwood for African blackwood. They had bundles of wood that yielded pretty good prices. I know John Keeton, Scott Hackler, and I all got bundles of the stuff from there. It's quite a bit of wood, and they were willing to split bundle at the time we ordered. They also sold the pieces individually, but the prices were better for a bundle. They were listed under new arrivals on their website. The stuff I got was dry spindle stock about 1 3/8 square in varying lengths. They have a $100 minimum order, but it's not hard to drop a hundred on the wood they've got.

[Richard Madden]

As Mark said, a collar insert can go out-of-round if not dry. I try to keep a supply of tenoned wafers, 1/2" thick or so with a hole drilled through to speed up the drying.

[Ryan Baker]

You've gotten a lot of good advise already. You need to get the speed down in the 300-500 rpm range for hand threading. If the speed is too high, you will have a hard time keeping up with it. You will also have a really hard time getting the tool disengaged at the end of the thread before you run into the end and strip out the threads you have. The crumbling threads often has a lot to do with the type of wood. Don't try to cut too deep with the threader or that will tear up the threads too. If you have cut the full thread depth and still want to reduce the diameter, reduce the diameter with a gouge or scraper (at higher rpm), then go back and recut the thread. Then practice, practice, practice.

[Tim Thiebaut]

Thank you David I will go check them out, dropping a $100 on wood is cool with me, you should see how much Rockler has made off me just in wood the past 2 months!

Ryan- As I said my 1220vs goes down to 120rpm, which is way below the 300-500 range you are talking of, I am not sure we are on the same page here. At 300-500 there is no way I could keep up.

[Ryan Baker]

Tim. Sorry. Brain fart. I was thinking you said 1200. Never mind.

[Tim Thiebaut]

LOL...Ryan it happens to me every single day dont sweat it bud!

[Bill O'Conner]

I know I'm a little late here with a reply but I have a few tips for cutting threads. 20 tpi are the easiest to learn with. Hard Maple is a good practice wood,might need to dripple a thin CA over the threads and wait for it to dry, than rechase them. Sharp tools are also a must take a daimond hone to the top of the tool pushing away from the handle. If you need any more help let me know I've turn a lot of threaded boxes

Bill