Acme Thread Dies

[Jim Wilson]

Is there such a thing as an Acme die? I have searched places that I know of Enco, MSC, McMasterCarr and etc. and have found no Acme dies.
I have a couple of nice tandem taps for Acme threads but cannot find matching dies. I can grind my own lathe tool and turn my own but I am lazy and not very good at grinding.

Am I looking for a smoke shovel here?

Jim

[beckley23]

I think you are going to become proficient at grinding. The only thing I have ever seen resembling a die are really chasers for a die head, and they are considered specials, very pricey.
Harry

[Ted Coffey]

I think they no longer exist if they ever did. There are references to acme dies in early Machinery Handbooks but I have machine tool catalogs dated 1895, 1900, 1925, 1930, 1950, 1960,etc. and I have never seen any listed. Acmes were almost always cut on a lathe or special screw machines using a similiar cutting tool.

[tattoomike68]

yes they can be found,or made, screw machine shops that make valve stems for irrigation pipe run them all the time.

a 12" by 5/8" shaft can be acme threaded 10" and parted off in 2 minutes. I have seen it done by the thousands.

the die head had adjustabe jaws and had excentic die inserts that you loaded on a fixture to surface grind the inserts. so they are all the same 90 d. off.

call the maker of the die head you plan on using.


[This message has been edited by tattoomike68 (edited 03-19-2005).]

[egpace]

Jim,
I've never dealt with this outfit, but they claim they can make them for you. No harm in asking them for a quote. (link below)

Ed
__________________________________________

"We are the leading supplier of ACME threading tools. If you need a special tap, die, or gage in ACME, NC, NF, Pipe, Left Hand, Right Hand British, Trapezoidal, Full Radius or metric thread...call US."

http://www.widell.com/

[zl1byz]

Jim, don't know how much of this work you want to do. But what about carbide inserts? I see sandvik do them. Will cost bucks for the holder and the inserts but they have many advantages like off the shelf, replaceable if damaged, will do hard materials, and can do many thread profiles once you have the tooling. Obviously you need a machine capable of working them and they wont be cheap, neither will getting dies made. I think if you want cheap, start grinding.

John.