Screw Threads are Important
A West Virginia company that cuts threads on shafts for the mining industry was surprised to hear of problems in the field. Investigation found that one of their lathes had a lead screw problem which caused a variance in feed while cutting threads. After the lathe was rebuilt their customers wanted assurance that threads were being cut with correct and consistent pitch.
The challenge was measuring small threads with a fine pitch on an eight inch diameter well pipe that was nearly 16 feet long and over 1,800 pounds. And the threads ran the entire length of the pipe. Contour tracers like our Zeiss Surfcom Nex have a four inch (100mm) stroke and are designed to measure small details like threads. However ideal part sizes for a contour tracer are under 35 pounds and that fit within a twelve inch (300mm) cube.
By the time the sample shaft arrived a solution was hatched to suspend the pipe and move the tracing machine along the 16 feet of length. After a few days of patient tracing and counting of threads, the report revealed a homogeneous thread over the entire length.
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