Single point thread tools

[Neale]

When I first saw this thread, I wasn't sure whether it was referring to tools for screwcutting (in effect, using the CNC mill as a kind of vertical axis screwcutting lathe) which would need a spindle encoder to synchronise the spindle rotation with XYZ movement but would be appropriate for a single-point tool, or for thread milling where the cutter revolves at higher speed and only needs XYZ synchronisation, which should be achievable on any reasonable CNC mill. In the course of doing a little bit of research to try to understand the differences myself I stumbled across this, which is a very nicely written document from Sandvik that talks about these different operations and has a lot of useful information (well, if you start out ignorant, anyway...).

Still not sure whether a single-point tool could be used for thread milling (although I don't see why not) even if it wouldn't have the "full hole-depth thread in one rotation" capability of the "proper" cutters as used for production.