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Threading wood

Since some of us were talking about grinding and this is a woodworking forum, here's some of each. :)

I mess around building cue sticks sometimes.
Some internal parts are threaded together on modern cues, but since i only make traditional full splices, have not needed to do much wood threading that cannot be accomplished with a regular lathe stick bit. However, some materials are better threaded, because they don't bond all that well with glue. Delrin is a common material for butt caps, and should be threaded as well as glued.

Recently i made a cue that required threading bloodwood for a Delrin cap. Not only was it difficult to accomplish but it was also quite a mess. Needing to do a similar task on an ebony cue with a walnut dowel extension, i decided to make a threading tool that could come straight in from the side for working close to the TS center.

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Cutter was made last night, had to try it out today.

First need was a mount for the Dremel to toolpost.
Dremel has a weird .748 - 13 thread (not metric, either)

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thread was cut about 50% depth, then saturated with thin superglue to consolidate the wood.

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After the glue set, i packed the threads with Trewax to prevent the cyanoacrylic from possibly melting and sticking to the bit. This might not have been necessary.

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After threading to depth, the wax was cleaned up with naptha & acetone.

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smt
 
Awesome Dremel mount! I have a new neighbor that has a pool table. What is the going rate for a SMT reject pool cue? Finally finished my long planned work bench but can’t afford a Loopy. However I might be able to own a sweet pool cue!
Joe
 
Great work Stephen!

I've been using a little pencil die grinder as an alternative to the dremel. I got fed up with it's plastic construction and flexing. The die grinder is all metal, has better concentricity, goes WAY faster, and is easy fixture, has a 5/8" body. And the cheap ones (HF) seem just fine.
 
Great work Stephen!

I've been using a little pencil die grinder as an alternative to the dremel. I got fed up with it's plastic construction and flexing. The die grinder is all metal, has better concentricity, goes WAY faster, and is easy fixture, has a 5/8" body. And the cheap ones (HF) seem just fine.

I wondered about that too. Most Dremels (and clones) seem to have a lot of flex that can cause chatter when in a router base or tool post mount. I have one of the slim high-speed air die grinders but I'm thinking of buying one of the Proxxon tools that has a 20mm metal nose.

https://www.amazon.com/Proxxon-38481-Professional-Rotary-Tool/dp/B001FWXEO6

Anybody used one of the Proxxon tools in such a mount and can offer an opinion on how rigid they are vs a Dremel?
 
I did similar once upon a time by mounting a plunge router vertically on the carriage of my dad's 9" South Bend. I used a 60° V router bit from Sears, back when Sears actually sold stuff like that. It worked great. The screws were made of maple and were about 1-1/2" - 4tpi.
 
Anybody used one of the Proxxon tools in such a mount and can offer an opinion on how rigid they are vs a Dremel?
I have not used a Proxxon, but I have used a Foredom shaft-driven handpiece, and a Foredom handpiece is incomparably stiffer than a Dremel. I've done (very) light milling of steel with a Foredom mounted over my Hardinge DSM-59.
 
Come on guys. I was going to write you can't polish a turd but SMT as usual seems to have accomplished that with the Dremel.

But this is the real deal 45,000 rpm all metal with cast iron mount one sweet tool.

Super 30

Andy
 

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Andy -

Love those all metal cast case grinders!

To other advisors - I actually have an air die grinder & considered it. It even already has a lathe mount because among other apps, I use it to sharpen the end of the rotary broach punches i make from time to time. For this app, the Dremel was a better choice for several reasons including where it fit in the tight corner of my poor little SB 10K. It is plenty rigid for threads up to 6 or 5 pitch, which is the limit of the cutter's overall diameter.

Delrin/acetal was popularized for butt caps about the time custom cue making took off during the 60's. As Andy alludes, there are no common glues that adhere it. Hence the threads. If the threads are then notched internally, it won't be easy to unwind it after the glue sets. Epoxy is what i use. With threads, other stick-um products are viable. The nice thing about threads is that the other components can be clocked if necessary to a pattern, and then the cap screwed on as the clamp.

As it turns out (no pun intended) the black rod of acetal i thought was in supplies, had been used up to make sleeves and collets. So the internally threaded cap in the photo above is actually linen phenolic tube, which glues well with epoxy or super glue.

smt
 
Are you any good at the game? Or do you just like looking at the sticks?

?"do you walk to work or carry your lunch?"

They're not mutually exclusive. Can you clarify your question?
Also real name so i can check your Fargorate. :)

I witnessed a demonstration of that manual method.

Do you do woodworking yourself, or just watch it?
I have a box of chasers and have used them for fun, but the ones on hand are too fine for these threads and don't work well in stringy wood like the walnut dowel in the ebony handle. Most guys making cues today use wing cutters in a mini-router, and come in axially rather than radially. This is possible when the cue fits through the headstock, or runs in a steady.

smt
 
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Yeah, I wondered about using a wing cutter, or even better a saw blade reground to 60 degree angle. Might be a reasonable investment if one were doing a bunch of threading. Not much cutting going on at the very tip of that router cutter...
 
Do you do woodworking yourself, or just watch it?

I do woodworking, and then like to watch the results.
I already posted pictures of a kitchen I built from scratch, a dining room table, storage cabinet, hand cut dovetail joints (part of a bedroom set with about 200 dovetail joints in all).
If you can find em in this forum mess then have fun.

Made some tools too, here is a scraping plane for a dining room table.

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A mortising machine.

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Enjoy your pool cues, they like nice.
 
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beautiful work, thanks for sharing.

seems like a micro angle grinder is a good option. can use a circumferential cutter, it's compact enough to mount on just about any lathe, reasonably priced versions are available, and enough power for finer wood threads
 
Cyanide-

Thanks! Per your post & Richard's, maybe something like a 60deg dovetail cutter, on a diagonal, would do the trick. I might try that, though it could require the more rigid motor options that have been mentioned.

RonS - nice work. I can't tell if the plane is all plates, or part plates and part casting - as from a donor plane?
Per cue sports: You started the woofing :) - so talk about your game?

Are you any good at the game? Or do you just like looking at the sticks?

During the late 70's and early 80's i played a lot of barbox pool. Also made tooling, metal and wood parts, and some machinery like mortise machines & shaper sliding cope tables for other shops including a guy who built pool tables on the side. At that time, with the break in 8 ball/barbox, i was about even odds to run out. Occasionally even a 2 or rarely 3 pack. Solo 9 ball game was not nearly as strong but i made money in cheap ring games. Then got into aviation, met my life partner, had a kid, moved, and didn't play for some 25 years. In the early 20-teens with eye troubles and nothing else to do for a while, i picked up pool again to torture myself. It's not like riding a bicycle. You remember what you could do, and fail miserably. Part of my problem is also that due to the retina and cataract surgeries and scar tissue, i've finally come to realize that i don't exactly see the ball quite where it is. Like trying to grab a fish in water.

If i play a lot, which is seldom possible, the mind compensates. But at my age, it also goes away quickly without constant practice. So no, I'm not very good. Still have fun with the group i shoot with. Great guys including a couple Fargorate low 600's. People like that keep you humble with how good you are not. :) Getting back in, sticks had suddenly become expensive. I'm a cheapskate. So got scrap wood out of the loft and built a couple for myself. Then kept on doing it, though sporadically. Mostly ideas to try out. Sometimes people like them and i've sold a few. Not into highly decorated sticks, but have ideas about how one should feel. Like many people who make them, I sort of feel that a BBC 360 style could be an interesting challenge.

Mostly i like machining and gluing up blanks. Sort of the instant gratification level.

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In the last photo, it's probably obvious - table legs on the right, cue blanks on the left.

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smt
 








 
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