I'm new to lathes but have a need to do work on about 5/8 inch dia wood rods. I will need to be able to cut threads at the end of the rod. Never having done this before, should I be looking at a small hobby type of lathe to do this manually or opt for a machine that can auto-feed and cut the threads? Not having done this before, I'm thinking doing this by hand isn't the consistent way to be doing this? But maybe I'm wrong...maybe it can be done well manually?
My budget is around 500.00 USD.
Thanks for any advice...