I’ve taken a Beall wood threader and have adapted it to a CNC machine. The Beall is designed to work with a hand held router, which makes it challenging to adjust the thread depth.
Combined with the CNC I can adjust to thousands of an inch. The best part, it’s programmable, repeatable, and easy to adjust if the wood doweling is off slightly. (I’m looking for a source of various hardwood dowels. Recommendations?)
A vertical mount helps, but a person could likely create a low profile jig to clamp on a table top. I thought the hard part would be centering the 60 degree bit over threading hole. Simple!
Having the Beall for sometime, it only occurred to me recently that the two tools could be combined. Another pro is nearly unlimited thread length.
This project forced me to try the MDI menu (manual data input) and learn simple G code. After a few Air runs, the trial is working out. Have not crashed into the jig yet, but when manually entering depths, I have been very careful to make sure the decimal point is in the correct spot!
Next step is going nuts, and a jig to hand tap them straight! The Beall comes with a nice set of taps. I’ll likely experiment using the CNC to cut out hex nuts, drill press for the tap hole, and hand tap.
What a unique, simple, yet perfectly logical method of threading! Never saw this before.
I’ve used a standard thread mill to cut an oddball thread in a mounting plate. The video is about as exciting as watching paint dry, as I was just running a slight touch-up pass. But it’s interesting just the same.
I get my dowels from our local shop, but for longer lengths, I haven’t found a lower price than for maple dowels. Caseys wood Im interested to find something that’s not on the other side of the USA
Thanks Kevin, will check it out.
Photo below, I have not played yet with the old Stanley dowel maker with the threading setup…will post later if that works.
The one cutter head I’m missing is 5/8, anyone out there have one for sale?
Thanks Bill,
That’s next on my mental challenge. I noticed that’s an option on my Vcarve pro. Will eventually pickup a bit to learn the technique. Just wondering if it’s possible to use a 60 degree bit for a 1/2” to 1” hole?
Do you mean like a 60 deg. similar to these? Sure, I don’t see why that wouldn’t work as long as the cutter fits into the hole you’re going to thread.
I had seen this option on Estlcam, and was curious to try it out. So I bit the bullet and bought a rather expensive thread mill for this special thread, I think it was something like 40mm x 2mm pitch. But it was a cool experience to do that operation.
I have the CNC and I have the Thread cutting bit that is shown. I build wood urns for human and pet ashes and I make the threaded portion for the top and sometimes the bottom cap at a two inch diameter. I put off making my threaded units on the CNC for a year, then bit the bullet and the first one worked just fine. Now I make them and give them to our wood turning club members for the urns that they are making. It works great with Onefinity and V Carve Pro software.
Thanks Larry, I’m curious to learn this feature on V Carve. Mainly to make grandkid toys. I know bits are likely expensive. Not sure what to buy or where?
If you don’t mind, what bit did you buy?
It’s the comfort purchase knowing this bit will work, if I learn the software. Bill
Thanks Ryan! I was pretty geeked out when I ran this part. The actual use for this was to mount a handheld shower sprayer down lower for my wife (handicapped, and can not reach up to the intended mounting point at the shower head area). Worked out absolutely perfect!
If you’re talking about the cutter, I got it from Amazon. Just do a search for ‘Thread Mill’ and they will show up. If you’re talking about the pic of the 2 cutters I posted, that was just a random pic I found, but it comes from Aliexpress.
I just received two cutting bits from Magnate.
751 side V-grooving bit- someone recommended cutting the bearing off $31.89
796 Thread Cutting $18.02
about $12 shipping
Have not used them yet. Will have to spend hours learning how to program VCarve pro.
Cutting threads is more of a curious thing for me.
I use my thread cutting bit to make 2.5 inch by 8 tpi openings in the top of the cremation urns that i build. it is great. I would be glad to help you if you have an issue with setting v carve pro.
Thanks Larry, I’m still screwing around, I entered a similar topic listing you may or may not have seen called “Thread Milling Wood” about the 25 days ago. Some photos worth looking at. I’ve learned a lot this month about setting up V Carve pro for threading. I suppose the bigger challenge in my case was making internal threads to match existing threads on a jar or canister. Still tweaking and playing, will definitely keep your kind offer to help in mind! Bill
