Is This Possible On A Mill?

Your goal of producing internal and external threads on a mill is possible in most every way, this will require a serious amount of gear train building on your end.

Let everyone how it works for you.
 
I'm not going to say it would be impossible to find a dividing head and all of the change gears to drive it from the lead screw. But finding that might be difficult. Many dividing heads are set up to be able to attach a gear train to them, and even those that aren't would be possible to adapt. With a dividing head you could make your own spur gears for the gear train. You just need to buy the proper involute gear cutters, or you can single point them with a tool holder that is something like a straight fly cutter and use hand shaped tool bits.

To cut the m55x2.0 external threads for instance, you'll need a 60° V-cutter and you'll need to move the table 2mm for each revolution of the part. What gearing it takes to get there is just math. Many dividing heads have a 40:1 ratio, your lead screw has a lead of 0.200 inch (5.08 mm) per revolution. So you need to turn the lead screw 0.3937 turns for each 40 turns of the dividing head drive. So If I did the math correctly :cautious: that gives you a ratio of 0.00984:1 or 101.6:1 depending on which way you look at it. So then it's a matter of making a set of change gears that will give you that ratio. Since gears are integers, finding the right combination is just a mathematical excersize.

I think I see a Machinery's Handbook in your future.:)

Another way to do this using modern technology is to put stepper motors on both the lead screw and the dividing head drive and use electronic gearing. That would save many many hours of making gears and is relatively inexpensive. Much less than buying gears.
 
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Thanks alot Jim! That's the exact kinda info I'm looking for! And I deffinetly plan on getting myself a handbook at some point Im guessing all that info is in there? What about hobbing? Is that another option ooorrr?? Sorry for the super basic questions I'm just starting out the whole machining thing
 
Hobbing is a possibility, in that case you would have to drive the dividing head from the spindle because the hob and the work have to be synced. Electronic gearing here is far easier to set up on a BP mill because there is no easy way to mechanically transmit power from aa BP head to any accessory device unless you bought a horizontal head attachment and drove the dividing head from that shaft some way. I don't ever remember seeing that done.
 
Unfortunately my knack has failed me on this one can't really find anything that cheap, but the guy I bought the machine off of has a dividing head and a few plates to go with it tail stock an all for a couple hundred and a bunch of other tooling for really cheap because he's retiring... no lathes tho :/ I would like to get a lathe at some point but it's hard to find anything under a grand around here :( I was honestly lucky to get this machine as cheap as I did! :p
 
Izzy said:
Unfortunately my knack has failed me on this one can't really find anything that cheap, but the guy I bought the machine off of has a dividing head and a few plates to go with it tail stock an all for a couple hundred and a bunch of other tooling for really cheap because he's retiring... no lathes tho :/ I would like to get a lathe at some point but it's hard to find anything under a grand around here :( I was honestly lucky to get this machine as cheap as I did! :p
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Ok. Motorize your dividing head and couple the drive to the table X direction through an appropriate gear ratio. Put a 60 degree cutter in the spindle and you've got a live-tooling lathe that can thread.
 
I sold my last lathe for $400 and it would have done that job. It had some wear but one can usually work around that if practicality is your main goal. My experience has been that tooling is more costly than the machinery.
 
John Hasler said:
Ok. Motorize your dividing head and couple the drive to the table X direction through an appropriate gear ratio. Put a 60 degree cutter in the spindle and you've got a live-tooling lathe that can thread.
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Thanks! I've been doing a bit of homework and I came across this really neat setup that basically converts a vertical mill to a horizontal mill, you basically move the turret out so the spindle is waay past the work piece then theres the fixture that bolts up to the dovetail underneath the turret then using a right angle head and arbor that connects to the fixture and bam horizontal mill! I also seen some setups of the diving head ran off the table via pulleys and a belt

DaveInMi said:
I sold my last lathe for $400 and it would have done that job. It had some wear but one can usually work around that if practicality is your main goal. My experience has been that tooling is more costly than the machinery.
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You're also in the states, 400 USD is almost 600cad things around here are stupid expensive, infact Ontario has some of the highest living expenses in the world! Hydro for example costs 115$ if you have your entire house shut off for the month cuz that's just the delivery fee! Gas is at about 4.50 a gallon.... I do alot of my shopping in the states because of this!
rgray said:
Is that a shock body?
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yes sir it is! Its a custom made strut tube for some custom built coilovers I've been working on for a while
 
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