Making lead screws on a lathe

=========== Good question. The next question is how good/accurate do these have to be? The next question is how much use will these get. Extensive use suggests a more square thread like an Acme, but this is expensive.

Dave Gingery shows how to build your own lathe, and some of the historical books from Lindsay [same seller] covers how the first lead screws were machined. click on

check #117 If you are interested in metal working and crafts take time to browse the website. Only problem is that if you spend all your money on books you won't have anthing left for material, etc. Most of the mill supply house sell "All-Thread" or "Ready-Rod" in UNF/UNC, metric and Acme in 36 and 72 inch lengths. At least grade 5 is available. some sources include ?PMPAGE=624&PARTPG=INLMK32 a whole bunch more. google on for >900 hits.

Unka' George [George McDuffee] ============ Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), U.S. president. Letter, 17 March 1814.

For entertainment purposes and where quality isn't critical, yes.

For economical use of your time, no.

Do you have the nut already? If you don't this will be the hard part. If you select a multiple start screw, you will have an enormous amount of fun/pain making the nut. I made a 50mm triple start trapezoidal leadscrew nut as an apprentice. Took me three days straight to finish it. Made it out of Aluminium Bronze (Original was Cast Iron made in the early '50's). In the end, I was excellent at grinding tools - I broke so many of them!! The lead was really aggressive, so I had to cant over the tool, to give a neutral rake. This was nearly ten years ago. As far as I know the machine is still working fine today.

I agree with Richard. Could be fun to do it once. But you'll only ever do it once, then you'll be like me and say: "Just buy one"

Cheers, Dom.

========== For the nut, see previous threads on this.

Old world craftmanship was to babbit the nut after "smoking" the leadscrew to prevent sticking. New [and IMNSHO better] way is to use moglice or another teflon/epoxy compound. As indicated this will *NOT* correct a worn lead/adjusting screw problem, unless the screw is uniformly worn [they never are], but it is possible in most cases to "slick" the threads up [down?] to the smallest [non-standard] dimension and custom form or machine the half/adjusting nut.

Unka' George [George McDuffee] ============ Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), U.S. president. Letter, 17 March 1814.