Recently I've been finding that some of the round threading dies I've been buying online have not been cutting the kind of clean threads I wanted. I had a project to finish and no time to order from other suppliers so I turned to my local hardware store that carried a good assortment of dies. The challenge was that those dies were hex dies and my tailstock die holder was made for 1 inch and 11/16th inch round dies. I managed to use a t-handled die holder and get it to temporarily work. The dies cut very cleanly and were a darn site less expensive.
I decided to design and print a couple of hex die inserts for the tailstock to enable use of 1 inch and 5/8 inch hex dies as well as the round dies in the future.
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| Hex adaptors for watchmakers tailstock die holder |
Here's the blanks as they arrived from shape ways
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| Raw castings for tailstock hex die adaptors |
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| Raw castings for tailstock hex die adaptor |
The fit of the dies was perfect without machining.
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| Hex dies close fit in casting |
I set up my face grinding set up and surfaced the fronts of the dies.
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| Face grinding rig for hex die adaptor |
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| Grinding setup for watchmakers lathe |
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| Hex adaptors with ground faces |
And went on to surface the sides of the larger die as well (the smaller one fit the socket too well and I didn't want it to loosen up.
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| Completed and installed 1" Hex adaptor for tailstock die holder |
Here's the completed hex adaptors ready for use!
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| Completed round and hex die adaptor set for watchmakers lathe |
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