Turns out that LH SHCS I ordered from Mcmaster for $14 was just for 1 screw! I thought it was a box of them so I cancelled the order. I wouldn't even need a whole box of them anyway if it was. I called the manufacturer & they sell the screw for 49 cents so I ordered 4 but they didn't know if they had any in stock. Said he would have the guys in the warehouse check & possibly take them off machines if not. That was Friday & my CC hasn't been charged yet.
I couldn't wait that long. Figured I might as well try making my own. I have no way or know how to make a screw head (except for a slot head) so I made one using a M6 screw & had to get a little creative. Although the minor dia of the M6x1.0 thread was smaller than the major of the M5x.08L thread it turned out ok & most importantly it works!
I bought a tapping head for the lathe a couple of months ago. I only have a keyless chuck for the lathe so reversing the tap won't work. Which reminds me, I have a 14N sitting here that I need to rebuild.
The tapping head is nicely made & works pretty well. I made a mandrel for the M6 screw so I could hold it in the chuck to center drill it for a center.
I chucked up a 5/16" drive PH3 bit to hold the screw head. Wasn't sure about this but it worked pretty well. Turned down the diameter as far I could go for the M5 major diameter. Still plenty of the M6x1.0 thread left. I also turned down the diameter of the head & the countersink.
I hate cutting metric threads cause I don't like to thread without using the halfnuts. I didn't feel like swaping gears to either. Turns out .8 metric pitch is .0315" & 32 TPI is .0313" so I decided to give 32 TPI a try. I put on some Dykem cause it was hard to see the 32 TPI over the 1.0 metric starting off.
Despite the overlap in the 2 thread pitches it came out pretty well.The M5x.8L screw I made is in the middle. The screw on the left is a RH M5x.8x16. The M6x1.0 screw on the right is what I start out with.
