G'Day cobbadog here

[cobbadog]

Hi Guys n Gals,
My name is John but I am known mostly as cobbadog. I live on the Mid North Coast of NSW Australia and recently after purchasing my first metal lathe at the ripe old age of 63 I am on a mission to make some things for my restoration projects in restoring Vintage tractors, engines and mowers.
On my lathe there is no thread chasing dial and I have been researching one to suit my Chinese made lathe which is proving tricky to say the least. So I did buy a dial that suits a different make of lathe and now I am on the hunt to have a couple of drive gears made for it to suit my lathe and metric threads. I was thinking of creating a new thread in the 3D printing section to get some views from people who will know if this is a suit application.
Cheers cobbadog

 

[Hopper]

G'day from Cairns. Drive gear for a thread dial is nothing fancy. You can cut one out from a sheet of 2 or 3mm brass by hand. Tooth shape is not critical as it is not transmitting power. Just mark it out with the correct number of teeth and cut and file to shape. A recent issue of Model Engineer's Workshop had an article on making a thread chaser dial for a chinese lathe, ISTR.
Of course, you can get away without one by keeping the halfnuts engaged and reversing the lathe motor (with tool bit retracted) until the leascrew winds the carriage back to the starting point. This can often be quicker than using a chaser dial.

 

[XD351]

G’day from Sydney
What make and model is your lathe ? Or can you post a photo of it ?

 

[Blogwitch]

Hi C,

I have modded my lathe to make threading much easier even though I do use engaged half nuts with a swing up toolholder 99% of the time.

Maybe these two posts will enlighten you a little.

https://forum.chesterhobbystore.co.uk/post/modding-my-threading-drop-in-dial-7284234?pid=1294502412

https://forum.chesterhobbystore.co.uk/post/new-zero-point-for-drop-in-dial-7284315?pid=1294502385

Hope this helps


John