Love your videos, man Just a heads up, the compound should be set at 60.5° actually. Due to the direction of the scale, you should set the complementary angle of what you intended. In other words, you should subtract the angle you want from 90° (90° - 29.5 = 60.5°). The way you set it, the angle was equivalent to 30.5°.

Honestly for the mini lathe, I think adding an electronic lead screw is a great idea too.

Nice to see someone really getting down to the nuts and bolts details of it 👍👍👍 Great video

I almost always use method #4, leaving the lead screw engaged. I retract the tool, and reverse the spindle simultaneously. That is the way my Dad taught me 60 years ago. I only use the threading dial when I am cutting a long thread. Great video! Solid information, and instruction.

Excellent video. A couple of questions... What is the purpose of the second smaller tooth on the screw cutting tool? and... How did you get the nut faces to line up with the middle "nut" at the end of the video? Ciao, Marco.

Great summary. The laser markings look beautiful. Looking forward to the video. Even with method #4 you CAN disengage the half nuts, if you reengage them at the same value on your thread-dial when running in reverse.

I'm so glad you got the flats of the nut's to align by the end of the vid, I did wince a little half way through watching 😂 That alone has gained you a new subscriber! 😉 P.s. Top marks for the content too, was very helpful for a muppet who's just bought his first lathe ⭐

Hi Jonesey. Thank you for a very interesting overview of single point thread cutting. Very enjoyable. Looking forward to you showing more about your new laser engraver. 👍😀

Lots of good information here. I would add that when cutting left hand external threads or internal right hand threads, it's necessary to move the compound to the opposite 29.5 degree angle so the forward edge of the insert is making the cut rather than the trailing edge.

Great video. I’ll be coming back for reference time to time

I have watched many videos that explain single point thread cutting but I think yours is the most thorough and informative. Very well done, friend. Great pace, great visuals, and most of all you don't hide your mistake of cross threading!

Excellent vidéo, thank you!

That was a really good video. Cheers

Excellent explanation for newbies. Like how you included your flub for honesty.

Mate, that LASER next level shit! I want one

Very good

Threading is such big subject with many alternative methods and a few sacred cows thrown in. The main sacred cow is the setting of the top slide at funny angles, much favoured by old timers and Americans. I have conducted experiments to prove/disprove the need, and using both methods on some 12mm 303 as my test and using a full form insert you could not tell the difference even under a microscope. Granted there may be a case for using the top slide method on really flimsy lathes or when cutting particularly coarse threads but the benefits of having the top slide parallel to the lathe axis out weigh any threading ones. It reminds me of a time I was demonstrating Threading at one of the ME exhibitions using the radial feed method, and some oldies said you can't do that, their apprentice master had shown them the only way to do it, using flank feed. Then a younger chap piped up saying that he had learned the flank feed method but when he got his first job and was asked to do some Threading, his foreman said something to the effect of what are you doing wasting your time moving the top slide, just go in! And he had done ever since. Sorry if this is a little long winded but I have made a study of Threading over the years, looking for the best method and I can say there isn't just one. It depends on equipment / tooling available and skill levels and comfort zones. In other words do it any way you get the results you want, not following anybody's dogma. There is a special tool that works extremely with your 4th method using a clapper box style tool, the idea is not new as it dates back to victorian times but seems to have been forgotten of late, there are a few videos on them, just by coincidence there is one on my channel 😉 There is perhaps a 5th method of note that is excellent for beginners who worry about crashing, that is turning the spindle with a crank handle. Because the lathe is not powered you can start and stop at will, great for building confidence. Myford even sold a handle for just this purpose, but much cheaper to make your own following the principle design from Geo H Thomas' book.

One of the very most enjoyable videos on machining I've seen, Thank You. Fun bit of threading that is possible: Threading a piece of shafting like you have done (bigger is better) with both left hand and right hand threads, and then fitting both a Lhand and Rhand nut to it. Yes you can even combine this into one nut, but it gets messy in the nut and hard to clean up.

20:45 Isn't that the minor diameter your measuring? Ah. 22:40. Well at least I was paying attention!! 😂👍

It was probably worth mentioning a few things. Cutting tips for screw cutting are very often R/H OR L/H thread use only as they don't have the proper clearance. Some have adequate for both but it is worth keeping in mind. When cutting L/H external with your 2nd method the compound slide needs to be rotated around so it feeds in the direction of cut like it does when you set up the R/H example. this keeps the cut on the leading edge. There are other methods of cutting threads using a calculated move on both the cross slide and the compound but you need to calculate the movement to keep in sync with the thread angle.

When threading away from the chuck with the tool upside down, do you change the 39degree compound angle or leave the same as threading into the chuck? thanks for the great videeo's, very clear instructions.

For method 3 instead of turning the tool over, use the internal threading bar. To keep the cut on the leading edge. Leave the compound at zero and advance the tool half the depth of cut per pass. This simulates advancing at 30 degrees.

Just curious. How long did it take you to get comfortable with all four methods? Great tutorial;thanks for your time and skills!

If your toolpost placement allows for it putting the tool behind the workpiece or putting the tool upside down and running in reverse should be able to cut a left hand thread without an extra gear, and it also allows you to move away from the workpiece instead of into it with the passes, which also removes the risk of overshooting and crashing into the workpiece. Running the tool upside down probably reduces rigidity of the setup too much though. Running the tool from behind should probably be the default way to do it for beginners since it removes the biggest risks with threadcutting.

Hello Jonesey. I really enjoy your channel and your high quality videos. I can tell that a lot of effort goes into them. While I was watching around 9:30 it appears from the video at least that the half nut lever may have been engaged slightly before/after the mark and that may have caused what seems like a huge/too deep final cut. It looks like the tool is only cutting on one side and there is a tiny ridge left over. I am a relatively new lathe owner and still a beginner at thread cutting. I have done something similar numerous times myself before realizing the issue, but I think this is it. I thought I might share and see everyone's thoughts and possibly correct any of my own misunderstandings.

you can disengage at end of threads just reverse lathe and close halfnut exactly where it was on the same rotation easy peazy

Just aside. You can disengage the lead screw. Then reverse the machine and re engage it at the correct position. Works fine. Cheers

Thanks for the video! I think you glossed over an important part, the thread relief. How do you know how deep to make the thread relief? I know it has to be as deep as the deepest threads, but if you're checking the threads as you cut them, you're either going to be too shallow or too deep?

Regarding the cutting tool, I don't think the 60 degree one is suitable for both metric and imperial. Common imperial such as Whitworth and BSP need a 55 degree tool and BA a 47.5 degree. 60 degree is OK for Metric ISO threads. Cheers Nobby

When you bored that nut out, and you said 22mm, I was wait a minutte and was ready to go back in the video to see the diameter of the bolt. But I think it is strong of you to show that error.

Why does everyone in the videos use the compound to feed in when threading I always just use the cross slide for every type of thread I cut. So does every Journeyman I have ever worked with at multiple shops.

If you set your compound to 59deg from parallel, you're cutting a malformed thread! You are then feeding in at a half angle of 31deg, whereas had you set the angle to 61deg from parallel the shape of the tool would dictate the thread form, allowing the trailing edge to clean up the right side flank.

Normally i make the nut first. It is easier to "fix" the external cut.

Has anyone ever said you almost sound like the actor Rupert Grint?

"Found a chunk of 3.1/2" round brass bar"! I bloody well wish I had a scrap bin like yours, where you can find a couple of hundred quids worth of brass tucked away in the bottom.😊

Y waste so much brass for this? Aluminum would be alot cheaper

One of my lathes has a tapped hole next to the spindle, kind of hiding behind the banjo, where you can thread in a shaft for an extra idler gear. When it's installed, the banjo just sits in a slightly different position