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Ed Nisley's Blog: Shop notes, electronics, firmware, machinery, 3D printing, laser cuttery, and curiosities. Contents: 100% human thinking, 0% AI slop.

Screw Cutting Fixture: Full-thread Aluminum

By and large, when you follow the recipe, you get the expected result:

Screw cutting fixture - M3x0.5 aluminum - side view
Screw cutting fixture – M3x0.5 aluminum – side view

That’s another length of the same aluminum rod, this time with a full-length M3x0.5 thread down the middle, and a screw with a neatly trimmed end.

Running the lathe spindle in reverse prevents the screw from loosening the jam nuts on the left:

Screw cutting fixture - M3x0.5 aluminum - in lathe chuck
Screw cutting fixture – M3x0.5 aluminum – in lathe chuck

Running the spindle forward does move the screw enough to loosen the nuts. Perhaps I should put wrench flats on the big end of the fixture so I can really torque the nuts.

That front nut was mostly decorative, rather than tight, because I didn’t expect the first attempt to work nearly as well as it did. A bit of filing to taper the end of the thread and it was all good.

That was easy…

 

Comments

One response to “Screw Cutting Fixture: Full-thread Aluminum”

  1. […] A length of aluminum hex bar became a nice 10-32 screw trimmer: […]