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Wood for thread chasing

Steven Forrest

Steven Forrest

Joined
Dec 23, 2014
Messages
211
Likes
350
Location
Sebastopol, California
Hi, Folks,
I recently purchased a set of thread chasing tools. This is clearly going to take some practice. I have the Sorby video that comes with the set, and have watched the Batty video. All the videos say boxwood, but it's surprisingly hard to find. Any suggestions from your experience for good wood to practice on (that will take a clean thread), that won't cost an arm and a leg and is readily available? I just hate the idea of wasting some beautiful piece of exotic wood, let alone the idea of ruining an otherwise good project right at the end.Thanks.
 
There are any number of exotics like blackwood, katalox, zapote, argentine osage orange, mopani and the list goes on. Dometically you may do ok with pear or dogwood. We have lots of Bradford Pear here and I have had pretty good results with it. Osage Orange has done well. The key is dense tight grain.
 
Most Dogwood and American holly work. I haven’t tried citrus but it should be worth a try.

The key for me was learning from Alan Bay to champhor the leading edge on each thread and be sure to make an escape slot for the thread cutter if needed. Choose a lathe speed where you can see the spindle threads.
Strike the first thread at about 45 degrees. Then each subsequent thread cut adds and deepens the thread by rotating the thread cutter toward parallel with the lathe bed. The final cut will have the threads cut parallel to the ways.

Have fun.
 
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I cheated, and got a piece of PVC from the side of the road and I practiced on that. I found a 4" diameter 6' long piece and cut it into 4" lengths and had a lot of practice. The price was right and then when I tried to cut treads on expensive wood they were pretty good.
 
PVC and other plastics are good to practice on. Ebony and Cocobolo can go on the list that Mike Peace listed. Give Pete Kekel a call at http://www.bigmonklumber.com/ He suggested several species I had not heard of and of course was willing to sell me some. The downside is a lot of exotics you find are sealed in wax and there's no way to know how dry they are. I buy wood from Pete, scrape the wax off the side grain and put it up to dry. It takes a while but if I'm patient I have plenty of dry wood for boxes and can usually find some to chase threads. That being said I got tired of trying to find good thread chasing wood and purchase a Baxter threader from Bestwoodtools.com and now I can cut threads in almost any wood.
 
Steven Forrest said:
Thanks, folks. I really appreciate the input. Never occured to me to try PVC... And I've got some bradford pear.
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I have bought several boxes of Boxwood from England. Decent price. Found the guy in England Ebay, I can give you his name if you want. In Hawaii, a local fruit tree has proven to be a good one for chasing threads, Lychee. Found another one, but its almost impossible to get it anymore: Kauila. Made perfect threads, as good as Lignum...
 
Emiliano Achaval said:
I have bought several boxes of Boxwood from England. Decent price. Found the guy in England Ebay, I can give you his name if you want. In Hawaii, a local fruit tree has proven to be a good one for chasing threads, Lychee. Found another one, but its almost impossible to get it anymore: Kauila. Made perfect threads, as good as Lignum...
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Emiliano - Was it really worth it to import stuff all the way from England? Please do give me his name/contact info. Thanks so much.
 
john lucas said:
... Give Pete Kekel a call at http://www.bigmonklumber.com/ He suggested several species I had not heard of and of course was willing to sell me some. The downside is a lot of exotics you find are sealed in wax and there's no way to know how dry they are. I buy wood from Pete, scrape the wax off the side grain and put it up to dry. It takes a while but if I'm patient I have plenty of dry wood for boxes and can usually find some to chase threads. .
Click to expand...

+1 on BigMonkLumber. Pete also suggested several species to me for threading. He comes to all of the North GA symposiums with excellent wood selections and prices.
 
Steven Forrest said:
Emiliano - Was it really worth it to import stuff all the way from England? Please do give me his name/contact info. Thanks so much.
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I have his contact info back in the shop. Be back on the 12 of August, I'm on vacation... Aloha.
 
Steven Forrest said:
Emiliano, that would be great. I also read the other relatively recent thread about chasing, too. I'd appreciate getting his email whenever you get a chance. No rush. Thanks.
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Send him an email. Very reasonable prices. huwcrompton@aol.com Good luck!
 
I believe others have also found Corian countertop material takes threads and might make a good practice material at low cost. Countertops get holes cut in them for sinks and the leftover Corian can reportedly be had for the asking.
 
I don't do any hand chasing but I have tried it, however even with machine threading just to show off I have soaked soft woods with CA and got good threads. The domestic species that I have used is american hornbeam which is a junk tree in the state forests in the area that I live and will provide good threads with out the need of CA.
 
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