Threading Long....Small Dia. Parts

[wrustle]

Had a rather interesting job here today and thought I'd post up some pics for all to see.

To some of you, this may be old school stuff, and I apologize in advance if the novelty has lost its charm with you, but for me, it was a first time experience and I actually thought it was pretty cool......for the first few anyways.....about 100pcs later.....it was just friggin' boring!

I actually no quoted this job a couple weeks ago from my biggest customer, but when your biggest customer calls back and says, "We'd really like you to do these parts for us.".....you find a way to do them!

It was actually their engineer (who I work very closely with on prototype parts) that suggested using a die to chase the threads, so I figured, Oh what the hell......I'll give it a go. Besides, what's the worst that can happen.......I make money? Doesn't sound too bad to me.....let's get the material and the tooling ordered and figure out the rest as we go along.

Anyways, a few days go by, material is cut and ready to go, delivery date is approaching quick, better get this deed done!

Hmmmm........anyone seen my 3/32" 5C collet? No?

I didn't think so......


Oh well,......not all is lost, I have a 3/32" ER16 collet, and a straight shank collet chuck.....let's get it loaded up in the VMC!! Now,.....where the hell is my V-block????

So, here's the skinny on the parts..........

.094" +/-.003" Dia. 303 Stainless Steel pins 2.940" lg. with a #2-56 threaded dia. on each end .630" long.

Well, not going to get that done in the lathe.....that's for damn sure!

Anyways....I get the V-block set in the vise and drop in the collet chuck, get her all indicated in for ctr and set my set screw inside the collet chuck as a stop for the pins.

I bought a couple of #2-56 Die Chasers from McMaster along with a straight shank die holder and mounted that in an ER25 Collet chuck in my Haas VF0.

Using a regular old tapping cycle I programmed the die to chase the threads .650 deep to give me the .630" length of thread.

Much to my happiness, it worked flawlessly!

Here's a pic of the .500" dia. straight shank die holder and the #2-56 threading die.



Now with the die holder mounted in my ER25 Collet chuck, the threading die can be placed into the holder and secured with the die holder set screws.




With the pin loaded into the ER16 collet chuck which in turn is being held in the V-block, and the die holder tooling mounted in the spindle, we are ready for some threading!




Not the clearest of pictures, but the deed is done! The threads are so fine it's very hard to tell the piece was even threaded, other than the fact you can see the top 5/8 of the pin is different!




The finished product!






All right.......only about 80 more pcs to make!




I did end up taking some video of this running in the machine.

When I get it all edited I will come back and add it in.

Hope you enjoyed!

Best Regards,
Russ