Pipe Threading

Here's a routine for pipe threading. I'm kind of lazy, so I wrote it where ordinarily all you have to input is the nominal pipe size to use it. Everything else should be OK as is. You can also input the actual pipe size and TPI from Machinery's handbook if you want. For instance, 1/2" pipe is 0.840 OD and 14 TPI.

A few notes:
- the taper on a pipe is 3/4" per foot. For a 1/2" pipe, that's only about 0.030" in diameter change over about 1/2". So it's really important to be accurate when setting up your lathe, or the thread won't be right. There's an input parameter for Tip Radius. If you're having trouble with loose fits, increase this a bit. It makes a big difference, since it makes the cut 2 x Tip Radius larger.

- I had a lot of trouble with a hesitation between the effective thread and the vanish thread, which could be somewhat compensated for by threading at less than 100 RPM. There's a long thread about the cause of this at

if you're interested. In any case, include this code in your .INI file:

The code includes some notes. You may have to change initialization parameters, feeds and speeds starting at line 88 for your lathe. My lathe does not have speed control, but does have a spindle encoder that I use to cut threads. There's also a check to see that you're not using Tool 0 starting at line 21. This is mostly to remind me to set up the correct tool before I start.

The pipe threading subroutine had a variable to decrement the cut taken that I didn't like that much. It worked OK, but took a lot of fiddling setting the initial cut, minimum cut, and decrement percentage to get a good result. Because of the taper, it was not readily apparent what depth of cut was being made, unless it was so large that it bogged down the lathe. I rewrote it to be automatic, and I think that it works much better now. It now scales the initial cut to the minimum cut based on the percentage of total thread depth that has been taken. Here's the latest version.

I found a small bug in one of the calculations. It was one of those radius/diameter things. Here's the corrected version
Before the correction, the thread was cut slightly too deep. This version makes better fitting threads.

Hi 10K,

Really nice work...

NPT pipe threads are always near and dear to me as I grew up in the Fire Sprinkler industry and have threaded thousands of pieces of pipe. I started when I was 15 yrs old and I have been doing this for 33 going on 34 yrs now. All of our machines are manual 1"-2" threaders or 2"-4" and we have two 6" threaders, one of which is a Landis Production threader which can thread 6" bolts also. We have a 6" Oster Production model and a Oster 2" production model with revolving die heads. Super nice for threading lots of pipe, way heavier duty than the market dominated Ridgid Pipe threaders, which we have several 300's and 535's, but those are good for out in the field when on a jobsite. Had a Ridgid 1224, but they are not good long term machines. Get pretty wore out after 100K pieces. The Landis machines are super nice, but parts are astronomical.

I know I veered off subject with machines, but love the work you have done and I am sure I will try this out in the future.

Just curios is the 10K name for the Southbend 10K. I still have mine that I bought when I was a teenager.


Thanks,
Robert

Here's another minor tweak. Man, that radius/diameter thing is hard to squash! This new version results in a very minor adjustment to cut depths. You probably won't even notice it.

Corbett
Thanks for the encouragement. 10k is similar to part of my actual name. The Southbend lathe explanation sounds good too! I've never owned a Southbend lathe, though. My CNC lathe is a converted 1943 Monarch 10EE.
 

@10K
"My CNC lathe is a converted 1943 Monarch 10EE."
Nice... I have always liked the old WWII Monarchs, the 10EE was a nice machine....   

Years ago we had 3 late 80's, early 90's Monarch VMC's... (45, 75, and 150)  wish we still had the VMC150, nice big 4' x 5' table with CAT50 tooling.. .but expensive to run as it had a 25hp spindle motor. 



@Dinuka
Excellent work on making it happen...    


 

Hi Dinuka_Shehan, can you make a video of what you did to make this work with axis GUI? Thanks.

minor error in the above posted subroutine:

o340 if [#<_OutsideDiameter> EQ 2.000]
#<_OutsideDiameter> = 1.375
#<_TPI> = 11.5
o340 endif

outside diameter should be 2.375 not 1.375

I also added in 1/16npt too
o250 if [#<_OutsideDiameter> EQ 0.0625]
#<_OutsideDiameter> = 0.3125
#<_TPI> = 27
o250 endif

{I have been fiddling around with these subroutines generally in this section of the forum for lathes / turning so use with caution.... I'm fairly certain I have not changed the core code of the macros though}

you will need to rename from txt to ngc
 

My cnc lathe is out of action these days.
Some old videos on my youtube channel.hope you like it.