hand filing wood screw threads-backwards

[rich pierce]

Tonight while making a custom stud for a sling swivel mount for a buttstock, I filed the wood screw threads by hand and thought, "not too bad!".  Then I tried to screw it in a piece of pine, pre-drilled, and all it did was spin and make dust.  I worked more on the threads to "sharpen them better" and tried again, same result.  Then it dawned on me that I had filed the threads left handed.     Screw it in counterclockwise and it works like a dream.   I think I have been looking at things backwards and upside down too much.

[Joe Stein]

So would you call this post the beginning of another left-handed thread about gun building?

[Birddog6]

Rich, If one would hold the rod in the left hand & file with the right at a downward angle & away from you to make a screw, most would naturally file a LH thread.  If you swap the file & the rod in your hands it will do a RH thread.  RH makes left threads, LH makes right threads.   

Keith Lisle

[Michael]

Rich,

Don't feel too bad. I made a rifle with a 52" barrel I bought from Ed Rayl at the KRA/CLA Show several years ago. The barrel is .47 caliber sort of an odd ball size meaning there are no production round ball to fit it. I finished it with the thought that I would buy a custom made bag mold to cast the correct size balls. When the rifle was finished I thought, if I can make the rifle why couldn't I make a bullet mold, worth a try. I had the opportunity to talk with Brad Emig at Dixon's about making a mold. He explained the entire process in great detail, making the cherry, making the two mold halves and fitting them together and cutting the cavity. Brad agreed to forge me the mold blanks from wrought iron and ship them to me and said to call him any time if I needed help. Following Brad instructions I fitted the mold halves together and brought them to the finished state for cutting the cavity.

Next was the cherry. I roughed it out and then for lack of a better term 'scraped' it to the finish diameter. Then I began to file in the teeth that do the cutting. I clamped it by the shaft in the vice facing me and using a new needle file with a safe edge began filing in the teeth. That took the better part of a day and a half to complete, it was very tedious work. It turned out  pretty good. So I take it out of the vice to admire my handywork and suddenly I realized ; I FILED THE TEETH BACK WORDS!!! That means I would have to run the cherry in the reverse direction to get it to cut the cavity in the mold.
 Anyway it worked fine, I finished the mold and it casts very nice round balls.

Moral of the story: Think about what you are doing.

[Ben I. Voss]

Rich, if only you could be a fly on the wall when, years from now, some poor schmuck decides he doesn't want a sling stud on his rifle and tries to turn out that screw!

[Tim Crosby]

 I read that and thought; why is he making a wooden screw? So I'm a little slow:)

 Tim C.

[B.Habermehl]

This takes me back to my high school machine shop days.  I was turning the screw for a c-clamp. When chasing the threads on the lathe I started my cut at the headstock end and threaded to the tail stock. I did the three wire mic measurements and they came out perfectly . So out of the lathe it comes and it won't screw into the c-clamp body, What the heck?  Then the teacher said "Really nice left hand threads". After turning and threading another screw,I finished the clamp. I use it to this day building guns and still get a chuckle now and again after 33 years.

[AndyThomas]

Rich, If one would hold the rod in the left hand & file with the right at a downward angle & away from you to make a screw, most would naturally file a LH thread.  If you swap the file & the rod in your hands it will do a RH thread.  RH makes left threads, LH makes right threads.   

Keith Lisle

Guys,

Actually, the trick is to file from the tip back up the shank, then it will be a righthand thread.

Andy