Grinding a Custom Threading Tool on the Surface Grinder

I have a job that will require cutting some Modified 10 degree Square Threads on the lathe and needed a special threading tool to do the job. I used a blank of HSS to grind one on my Landis surface grinder using a compound sine plate to grind the compound angles. We will go over how to set up for this job, including how to make the calculations to grind angles on a sine plate or sine bar.
Original Video showing how I made the nut for this job: Machining a New Bronze Cross Feed Nut for a 1909 F. E. Reed Lathe - • Machining a New Bronze...
Link to the Sine Plate calculator on the SuburbanTool web site:
www.subtool.com/st/how_to_set...
Support VintageMachinery.org on Patreon:
/ vintagemachinery
Please Visit: www.vintagemachinery.org
Sponsored by:
American Rotary Phase Converters
www.americanrotary.com/?sld=k...
Use checkout code "Vintage10" for a 10% discount on all AD, ADX and AI converters!

[@Sizukun1]

Repair a tool to make a tool to make a tool to make a part that goes on a tool, which makes other tools and parts. What a circle of life!

[@lwilton]

That's where the entire world around us came from. Thousands of years of it.

[@cschwad559]

Sizukun1 and we all love doing it, right? Cschwad

[@ianbertenshaw4350]

Sizukun1 But first came the idea or dream and everything developed from that - without these we would still be living in trees !

[@gilbertodiaz-castro626]

Don't forget, the lathe is the one machine tool that can build 99% of itself, short only of the castings...

[@Sizukun1]

@@gilbertodiaz-castro626 that means it can never build itself.

[@railfan439]

That brought back some memories from 8th grade metal shop. I hated math, but the trig memory aid, "remember the Indian Chief SohCahToa" has stuck with me for those many decades. See you at the Bar-Z. Jon

[@mod317]

Thank you for the great explanation of the sine plate and how to use it! Your explanations of all the things that must be taken into account when performing the different tasks are the best!!!

[@schorse1000]

This made my day! I rarely use the calculator on the phone, and I totally didn't know about the extra functions when you turn it around. Thank you so much for telling this!

[@garysimms77]

Also, you might know, but if you swipe left on the Compass you get the level/angle finder. I use it in carpentry for some quick 'no bozo' checks.

[@davep1445]

Great video, especially for those of us who have never done such a thing. Keep it up, I love watching your channel. Dave

[@vajake1]

This was a wonderful video. This was the first time that I ever saw a compound sine plate set up and used. You made it look so simple! Thanks so much for posting this one! (I've been looking forward to seeing this tool being made! It was well worth the wait!)

[@CornishMiner]

You have that Landis set up so nicely now. Must be a delight to have such a large, yet precise tool at your disposal. Best wishes.

[@AD4MRick]

Keith, I really enjoyed this video. I'm not a machinist and had never seen the sine plate used for that process. Learn something everyday on KZbin. Thanks R.

[@jcs6347]

Keith, thanks for the video! I learned how to work the gauge blocks, finally, and how to use a compound sine plate with a custom grind. Thanks again!

[@ummthingy]

I work in machining medical devices. Spinal devises designers in particular love to use custom ACME and square threads, so I am constantly designing custom thread tools. Thank god for Wire EDM. Love your videos, they are very informative.

[@expatconn7242]

Keith this is a fantastic vid...i have never seen that done before.. the math, the making, then to see it fit in the tap was just cool to see... thanks

[@shawnmrfixitlee6478]

Perfect job on that threading tool Keith .. Can't wait to see it in action .. Thumbs up !

[@1rcflash418]

loved this video, just the right balance of teaching and demonstration

[@phillipyannone3195]

Excellent video on the use and setup of the compound sine plate.

[@WreckDiver99]

Awesome information on the Sine Plate usage. My grandfather was a tool maker for General Motors way back...I have alot of his tools, but my uncle got his Sine Plate. Then again, I had no idea back then what it was used for. LOL...Nice Video Keith!!!

[@mytruckownsit]

great video as always. keep it up bud. you often remind me of my good teachers past. thank ya

[@leiferickson9666]

All looks good, that is the best way to go, you know your cutter is spot on!!....🍁

[@rolliekelly6783]

Keith, that is very generous of you to do that for a viewer. When you get that done, I think you have a viewer in Ky. who has a little welding for you to do. Not much just a little bit, Rollie

[@VintageMachinery]

I would be more than happy to help my friend in KY out, but I would be brazing it back together. I just have not had a lot of luck with stick welding cast iron. But, I think that Brian will be fine when it is all said and done.

[@lyntonr6188]

Great work Keith

[@zevakikel]

Great video! I can wait to see that that 10° left handed cross slide to born!

[@JB-kw4ug]

Thanks for the video, I've wanted a surface grinder, but could not find the need for one till now. Thanks again, hope to see you at the Bar Z in a couple of weeks, JB.

[@madebymike8792]

Hugely interesting. Thank you for sharing this Keith.

[@tomeyssen9674]

Keith, I love the use of the compound and the surface grinder.....thank you for a revision of the math. I have the Suburban magnetic, but not the compound. Guess I need to do some more shopping. -Tom Eyssen

[@lecnac855]

Excellent job as usual.

[@rtertertrryyty]

Excellent video I’ve been trying to figure out how to calculate the sin plates recently and it wasn’t working out very well thanks to your video I now know how to figure it out Thanks

[@Samalyzer45]

Keith, with the surface plate you'll run into the same issue that you encounter when cleaning windows. Paper towels are made with sizing, or as it's commonly known, starch to hold the wood fiber together. The layer of starch left on your surface plate from the paper towels will have minor imperfections in it that would be as bad or worse than the dust you're cleaning off. A better method would be to use the same thing that works so well on glass, washed and tumble dried .microfiber towels. It would probably also be a good investment to purchase a cheapie air-brush compressor to use to blow off the surface plate afterward with oil-free, dry air.

[@Peter_Riis_DK]

Interesting topic, well presented and narrated!

[@mysock351C]

I'm glad I'm not the only one that cleans granite inspection plates with window cleaner.

[@edwardcook9957]

Thanks for the lessons Keith. Very good.

[@jonka1]

Very nicely done Keith and very informative thank you.

[@dougrundell947]

Love that compound sine plate.

[@Rich206L]

You realize I will have nightmares about HS math tonight! Why is it so simple now? Great educational video, Prof. Rucker! Rich

[@VintageMachinery]

I was one of those strange kids who actually liked word problems. Much better to be using math to solve a real world problem rather than just a bunch of numbers on a piece of paper. However, I can remember back in 9th grade when my algebra teacher gave us a word problem that required calculating how much barbed wire a farmer would need to by to fence in a pasture. Having put up a lot of fence by even then, I gave the teacher the answer she was looking for as well as the "correct" answer that took into account the extra wire needed for cross hatching corner posts, etc. She gave me extra credit!

[@harlech2]

Excellent video!

[@cougarhunter33]

Thought of you yesterday as I drove by both Tiffin and Tipton Iowa.

[@VintageMachinery]

There are lots of towns named Tiffin and Tipton, but I am pretty sure that we are the only "Tifton"!

[@nocarebear8301]

Great video Keith!

[@nanaandbump.]

This is really cool, thanks for sharing!

[@weshowe51]

Those blankety-blank gnats are bad here in Texas right now, too. Interesting to see a way of making a precise tool bit though. TY for the good video.

[@Windgonner]

Yes, the human hand is very sensitive to minute discrepancies on a surface. There was a documentary many years ago about a medical study of this. The conclusion was that a human was actually able to detect deviations of 1/100 of a mm (4/1000 inch). Also thank you for showing me something I had no idea that it existed, the sine-plate. You are now on my subscription list.

[@JunkMikesWorld]

I was puzzled at first why you were going to such lengths to make such a simple tool. I was thinking to myself that I had cut Acme threads many times and I had only ground the tool on the bench grinder. Right at the end you answered my question. You said that you did not have a standard or gauge to grind the tool against. That makes sense! I had a gauge when I made my tools. Likely no one makes such an archaic thread form gauge. Perhaps at one time those were available, but good luck finding one. All the best! Mike

[@tolydukhovny682]

excellent subject lesson on tool and dye making!

[@WillyBemis]

Thank you Keith! I learned a lot.

[@Godshole]

Very nice job Keith :)

[@camcompco]

Hi Keith, since your using an i-phone I thought I would point you to an app i use often, it's called "Gage Stacker". You enter our desired height to 4 places (tenths) and it tells you which blocks you use to get there . . . .very handy and quick BTW, love your thoughtful explanations, great work John - Long time subscriber

[@jamesconner8275]

Professor Rucker at his best.

[@ianbutler1983]

Thanks Keith, very informative video.

[@juanrivero8]

Thanks for the video. I especially appreciated the gauge block demo. Would not have thought you should do it subtractively. Gosh, old-time machinists had neither ccalculators nor cell phones!

[@eddiekawecki2510]

We had slide rules. Boy now that was something to learn! (Or never learn)

[@stefanpariyski3709]

Awesome video, saw a few new things.

[@matthood9838]

Thumbs Up for the white board usage!

[@billdlv]

Keith it looks like the tool fits well, nice job. In your calculations for the angles for the compound sine plate I think you may have made a mistake by not taking into account the compound angle. In your case, the 5° angle is small and the error introduced is also small, but for larger angles this will not be the case. Suburban tool also has a compound sine plate calculator on their website. Using your numbers the gauge stacks should be 0.435779 for the 5° and 1.289499 for the 15°. Again the error is small for both in this case.

[@littleworkshopofhorrors2395]

Absolutely right, although small in this case it should not be ignored in the teaching of compound angles.

[@billheather3961]

This is simply known as cosine error.

[@VintageMachinery]

Bill, I have to give you credit that you are correct. However, the only angle that was really important was the 5 degree angle - and that stack is the same for both a single angle as well as a compound angle: 0.4358 (rounding to the nearest tenth, which is all that my gauge blocks will go down to). Because h 15 degree back angle is just clearance and not critical, it really does not matter in this situation. But, you are technically correct.

[@billdlv]

Not trying to nit pick, I've been burned by making this mistake that's why I brought it up. It absolutely would not matter for your tool bit.

[@billdlv]

Yes I cut and pasted from the Suburban Precision website, should be 0.4358 and 1.2895, and yes it would not matter for the tool bit Keith ground.

[@ScottandTera]

great video felt like I was back in shop class lol. very informative

[@carver3419]

Excellent video ....

[@EdM66410]

Surface grinder hype! 😁

[@perry437]

very informative and impressive

[@elsdp-4560]

THANK YOU...for sharing.

[@jmhannnon]

I really like the white board talk. Seems strange grinding a tiny tool on such a big grinder :)

[@scroungasworkshop4663]

And that folks is why custom machining is so expensive, it’s very time consuming. Hey Keith, you sound just like my high school trigonometry teacher........I couldn’t understand a word he was saying either😂

[@gilbertodiaz-castro626]

Great video Keith. I have a question, if you had calculated the triangles that were to be removed would it have been possible to just keep track of how much was being removed to know precisely when to stop grinding off? I will be getting my surface grinder going in a month or two and am trying to learn as much as I can so I can do precision work without worrying too much of over grinding the workpiece. As you were grinding I'm thinking, removing the material for the correct angles is actually removing a piece that makes to triangles from the existing corner towards the center of the workpiece, so, if I calculate this distance from the corner to the tip of the needed thread tool I would know how much to remove to get to the precise measurements??

[@cameronmccreary4758]

I have never seen a square thread. Can one even find accurate square thread gauges? Nice work Keith.

[@kevCarrico]

ah... fantastic video! thank you!!

[@DK-vx1zc]

Thanks for sharing Keith. I love to see surface grinder work like this. Any experience using a univise for grinding toolbits? Dan

[@charlesmarlin6632]

Great Video Keith!! :-)

[@swarfrat311]

Keith, Great video! You make complex things seem so simple. I guess they are when you know what you are doing? BTW, as they used to ask back in the 60s, "What's your "sine"? (lol) In response, when folks asked what sign I was born under, I'd tell them "Hospital"! Have a good one! Dave

[@deehaynes4269]

Great Video!!! Saw a few of those south Georgia bugs in your video Ha Ha. Can you damage your gauge blocks when using the sine plate? Thanks

[@jeffmoss26]

nice one Keith! just catching up on videos :)

[@googacct]

You should look into getting a stereo zoom microscope for doing checks like you did for comparing the threading tool to the tap. I have one in my shop and use it all the time to look at wear on bits and part fit ups. If you do get one be sure to get one with a camera mount so you can share what you see.

[@dankolar6066]

One can barely hear that disturbingly happy bird outside your shop. Therefore, your new mike must be working very well. Nice video. Thank you.

[@larrysmall3521]

Great video. Do you remove the gage blocks after you lock the plate or do they get exposed to the grinding dust?

[@VintageMachinery]

You typically leave them in place.

[@davestrong6472]

You need to get one of those overhead projectors, the ones that put use asleep in math class!

[@Baron3D]

As always , nice to see. If You don't have SINE function? For small angles like 10°, calculate 10*PI/180 = 0,1745. Thats about 0.5% error. Smaller angel givs smaller error.

[@binujacob8326]

I am working in a tool shop at Cochin,(India ), here we are grinding, 0.500mm slots, 0.150mm radius both male and female in 0.005mm tolerance,using Jung grinding machine with optidresser and noritake grinding wheels

[@doctwiggenberry5324]

I certainly enjoy watching the set up and the calculations for precise tooling. ps you really need some bug spray, are those chiggers?

[@VintageMachinery]

Those are gnats. If you live here long, you just learn to ignore them (for the most part).

[@W0lf77]

Great video. Congrats on not cursing the whole video with that swarm of gnats swarming you the entire time. I would have lost my shit and broke out a weed torch haha.

[@JustinAlexanderBell]

Mosquito dunks kill fungus gnat larvae.

[@jeffnagel918]

What a kick in the gut, build such a beautiful shop and have the georgia insect community move right in. Keith does have some patience...

[@gregorywest2029]

Very nice job, Keith. Was that flies or blood suckers I heard in the sound. Would one need to heat treat a cutter like that? Thanks again, Greg

[@VintageMachinery]

Those are just pesky gnats. Harmless, unless you hurt yourself trying to get away from them. Since the cutter was HSS, no need to heat treat in this case. I was grinding it in the hardened state.

[@carlquib]

Hi Keith, curious why you were feeding the work into the wheel the hungry way (basically climb cutting)?

[@machintelligence]

Not only have things come up, but a large tree has come down.

[@Dc_tech386]

i have 20 inch planer top that need surface grinding can these machine use to grind it back or maybe its not wide enough

[@noelhenderson700]

If you use a sine plate a lot it would be useful to write a spread sheet to calculate the stack for the most common angles and build a table for them.

[@Hoaxer51]

Keith, when you're done using this tool, do you mark it so you know what angle it was cut at or do you throw it in a box with the rest of your cutters? This was a good video, there was a lot of thinking to make that tool! Thanks for the lesson.

[@VintageMachinery]

Quite honestly, it will probably just get thrown in with the rest of my cutters. I doubt I will ever need this grind again, but if I do, I should remember that I have it and can probably find it again.

[@robertkutz]

keith interesting video.

[@1995jug]

Glad your are using the cutter instead of me I would break it first time.

[@sverreeriksen1982]

Hi Keith, where does the 15 degree come from? Very interesting, mvh sverre eriksen , Trondheim, Norway,

[@anthonytammer9214]

Looking at this setup, it seems that the clearance angle is going to confound the thread flank angle. In other words, the 5 degree is going to have to be increased slightly to make up for the clearance angle. You could make the correct angle with either a formula (the ratio of two trig functions) or sketch the correct angle by using an Autocad sketch. A related problem I give my high school kids: You need to cut a 15 degree edge on the long side of a long part on the Bridgeport, but the part is so long you have to swivel the ramp at 45 degrees to reach the end of the part. So now you don't have 15 degrees anymore looking at the end of the part. It turns out you need to set the head tilt about 21 degrees so that it becomes 15 when the ram is swiveled 45. We work this out with trig and algebra, and then develop an Excell spreadsheet to account for the confounding angles.

[@mobiousenigma]

keith im not certain but if you rotate your gage blocks in the sine plate 90 deg your angels will drop as the length c increases.. or the height of the gauge blocks is only correct at length c from A .. over 5 inches probably not much but i think thats where the width at the base of the cutter comes from.. or is there a location for gauge blocks on the sine plate? just curious not calling mistake spotted

[@VintageMachinery]

Mike, Keep in mind that the piece that rests on the gauge blocks is a round bar - as is the other end. No matter what angle you put under the sine plate or bar, the distance between the two bars is always the same.

[@mobiousenigma]

sorry keith i must be missing something here as i saw it your gauge block stack was rectangular you have 2 options stack parallel to pivot or stack transverse the one you chose moves the distance to the pivot point therefore the height ov the angle at the distance its calculated for .. i believe you state 5 inches.. was the leading edge of your gauge block stack 5 inches from the pivot point making its height correct for the desired angel ? sorry to pester here perhaps its worth a bookface post or a whole video i follow the mathematics part as i said i question your stack placement within the sine plate .. or im missing something in how they work .. thnaks

[@MultiMachinist]

I really enjoyed this video Keith. You mentioned Guage blocks don't l go below .100". I don't know of you meant your set or not, but I have a Starrett/Webber set that has a .050" block in it.

[@VintageMachinery]

Actually, I think my set has a 0.050" block as well.

[@charlescompton4495]

Could you take a piece of round and chuck it in the lathe after you thread the shaft and run some threads on it so you could have a standard for future use? I know, you may never need it but if someone else needed it you could saw off a little bit and mail it to them. Just a thought; oh, I did pay attention in Trig class but at 70 yrs. old, it flew the coop. Thanks for the memories and the great video, Greg.

[@ronalddavis]

that's a good idea.

[@bigskyhobbycorner603]

Hey, great videos. Is there a way I can visit with you about grinding a custom form tool? Its small and intricut. I need a professionals help.

[@VintageMachinery]

Send me an email. I show my email address at the start of my videos when my name pops up on screen.

[@pandaward4671]

The five inches is between the pins. Did the stacks take into account half the width of the top pin, so that the angle is correct?

[@VintageMachinery]

Both sides of the sine plate rotate on round pins - so they are always the same distance apart no matter what the angle is.

[@shortribslongbow5312]

That is the first time anyone has shown me how to apply that math. Thank you so much it only took 74 years of my life to understand. LoL

[@VintageMachinery]

That is the problem that I have with the way math is taught in school - they teach you how to do it but never tell you why you need to know it or how it is applied. I am not math genius, but I use it every day in so many ways.

[@amunderdog]

You place your gauge block stack long ways? Seems deeper into the throat would effect angle

[@jusb1066]

it has a round bar on the underside, so it will be the same point

[@amunderdog]

Thank you for the clarification.

[@PeterWMeek]

I think Alfred Hitchcock said it: "If you show a telephone in Act I, it had better ring by Act III." You can't show a Triumph™ box (at the very end of the video) without saying something about what came in it.

[@Spott07]

"Remove everything that has no relevance to the story. If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it's not going to be fired, it shouldn't be hanging there." Anton Chekhov I think you're referring to the "Chekhov's Gun" principle, established long before Hitchcock.

[@PeterWMeek]

+Scott Anderson - Wow. I've been "quoting" (apparently I haven't been) Hitchcock on this for over 50 years. A quick google finds no reference to it whatsoever. (I've referenced it in a number of online forums, so that is surprising.) Chekhov's Gun has it's own Wikipedia entry, although he said it several times in slightly different forms. Thanks for setting me straight on this.

[@MorseB]

ahhhh... Now I understand where that grinder can be useful. I could not figure out why anyone would want such a thing when a mill would be more accurate but for making custom cutters it's brilliant.

[@jusb1066]

cant mill hardend steels, you can pre mill them before hardening, but the heat process will distort them slightly , needing grinding and for tool bits , they are already too hard to mill

[@littleworkshopofhorrors2395]

"mill would be more accurate", a jest perhaps? Milling machines are crude monsters when compared to surface grinders. Think axe compared to a scalpel.

[@MorseB]

Its physically impossible to have accuracy similar to a mill with a sacrificial ablative cutting surface such as a grinding wheel over large areas. As the wheel diameter decreases through use, your surfaces will become more and more out of spec.

[@littleworkshopofhorrors2395]

Could that be why you "spark out"? Are you sure you meant to use "ablative" and not "abrasive", which would sound more logical in your sentence? You only have to look at the feed dials, grinders are often an order of magnitude finer than mills. Or are you not talking about manual machines, but CNC.

[@ronalddavis]

Oh? cutting tools don't wear?

[@tomeyssen9674]

By the way...great job.

[@jonka1]

@3:53 you say that by cutting an Acme thread you are cutting on the side. Yes but it still has a large flat area on the thread root which is a direct forward cut almost the same as a square thread.

[@elcheapo5302]

When you need a tool that doesn't exist anymore, you're out of luck. Unless you're Keith. Then you go to your garage and MAKE it.

[@VintageMachinery]

As is the case when you are working on so many kinds of "vintage machinery"....

[@Rebar77_real]

Never underestimate finger feel when checking something. Remember the Swedes did a study posted to Science Daily a few years ago(I found the article again by googling "feel nanometer with your finger"). Some people could detect a wrinkle a mere 13 nanometers high across a nano-scale flat surface. How wild is that? A human hair is 75 microns, which is 75,000 nanometers, we're talking 13nm! Cool to think about how small that is and that we can feel it through our fingertip, eh? That popped into my head during the windex intro and just wanted to share it. Take care all.

[@nocarebear8301]

Wonder how good a piece of claybar would clean a surface plate

[@hooter7003]

Hi I could be wrong but looks like you grounded it it to go right to left 🤔?

[@VintageMachinery]

No, the shoulder is on the left side, which will make it perfect for a left hand thread.

[@user-fd9ke4ty8z]

You best

[@dougrobison1156]

Sweet! Hey Keith, as always, LOVE YOUR WORK! I have a Walker Turner 1165 table saw with a worn worm gear blade height screw. I had it apart for servicing but failed to take a photo, (sheeesh). It needs the same treatment your'e doing here except on a spiral. It is serviceable but a bit sloppy with excess backlash. Once set the blade height is stable so I will let it go for now. But, your repair on this worm gear makes me lust for your tooling!

[@geowallace9758]

as an apprentice starting 1951, i hand ground all my threading tools