I'm new to thread cutting on my small Grizzly 0602 10x22, so my questions are pretty basic.

I set the machine up to cut a 24TPI thread. The gear set-up was a bit confusing at first, but I found a wonderful piece of freeware that provides many gear set options. I settled on a combo of 36/127/40/II/A (installed the bushing correctly on the lower drive gear). I'm threading 304 3/8" stainless rod. I did a grazing pass by hand cranking the chuck to confirm I was getting a proper TPI and it looked good.

However, I can't see anyway to cut towards the headstock at the lowest spindel speed on this machine (150 rpm). When you engage the half-nut the carriage flies along. It would be very dicey trying to disengage the half-nut in time, even with a generous undercut. And you'd have to be lightning fast to re-engage the half-nut by watching the indexing wheel. Without a brake, leaving the half-nut engaged and letting the carriage coast is a no-go.

Is there a way to cut FROM the headstock out by running in reverse? That would eliminate the risk of clobbering the part. Of course it would mean inverting the tool and switching the compound angle.

Has anyone done this on one of these machines or similar?

I can see what people convert these to 220 VFD, but for all the thread-cutting I do that will have to wait.

Thanks for the advice!