Hand chased threads

[john lucas]

I have been playing with Milliput 2 part clay like epoxy lately to see what I can do with it. The Zig Zag ornaments were the first experiment. Then I decided to see if it would just stick to the side of a piece. It does, especially if you wet the piece lightly first. I plan on more experiments along this line. Last night I came up with the idea of trying thread chasing in this stuff. I purchased the Baxter threader precisely because most of the woods I have available are terrible for thread chasing. The Milliput seemed a bit harder than a lot of the woods I was using it on so I did both this morning. I cut the male threads in this piece using the baxter threader. Last night I put some Milliput into a rabbit cut in the lip of the lid. This morning I cleaned it up and hand chased some threads into it. It worked fantastic. It cuts easier than PVC but seemed to take a really clean thread. Of course I was also checking to see if my homemade 16tpi thread chaser would match the machine cut threads and it does. Fun experiment. I think this is the perfect solution for Cremation Urns since they often aren't very hard woods and need some sort of insert to chase the threads. The Milliput comes in white, black, Turquoise, Silver gray, and Terracoata.

 

[Gary Beasley]

Do you think there will be any future problem from wood movement on the way milliput holds on to the wood?

 

[Bill T Tucker]

Loved your demo for TAW. Learning to hand chase threads on pvc and was wondering...if milliput was used for both male and female threads, would it hold up over time?

 

[john lucas]

How it holds up over time will be interesting to see. I've done threads in epoxy before and those pieces I still have and it's held up well. In this case the box is only about 1 1/2" i diameter so there won't be much wood movement. With the epoxy I cut shallow grooves in the wall to give the epoxy more hold. I did not do that with this so it will be interesting to see. I did a test many years ago and turned a groove on the outer edge of a platter that I filled with epoxy. After I turned away the scrap wood it left nothing but epoxy. It was about 12" in diameter. After about 2 years half the ring came loose. Another year or so and the epoxy ring simply fell off. I've done a lot of epoxy fills on my hand mirrors and the rings were probably 4" across. Those have held up well. So I guess I'll have to start a test on the Milliput and see.

 

[Donovan Bailey]

John, you might just be on to something here. I can't wait to try it. I always felt like I wasted my money for all of the hand chasing tools that I have bought. I have tried every wood on the east coast and failed at every turn. I hate the thought of having to buy exotic hardwoods just so that I might find something that threads. However, this might surely open up some interesting possibilities to play with. Thank you for checking this out...I never would have thought to try it.

 

[john lucas]

And it comes in 5 different colors.

 

[Dean Center]

Where do you purchase? When I look it up, there are 'fine', 'standard', 'medium' and 'superfine' options. Any substantial difference? The yellow-gray is quite common, maybe it's the original version, do you know what color it is when cured?

 

[john lucas]

I got them from Amazon. There wasn't a choice in standard, medium or superfine. When you mix the 2 colors that come in a package together that is the final color. Here is a group of 5 but you can buy individually if you put in the color such as Milliput Black or Milliput Terracota. https://www.amazon.com/Milliput-Epo...eywords=Milliput+epoxy&qid=1605307117&sr=8-11

 

[Emiliano Achaval]

A few years ago, a traveling, well, a woodturning tourist, came to Maui and gave us a demo on just about this. He had several box blanks already made with miliput. A good option for those that do not want to spend the money on Boxwood or other dense woods.

 

[john lucas]

I have 1 more blank that has West system epoxy in the grooves and will try to do hand chased threads in that. I usually do machine threads in the epoxy but it now has my interest up.