Yes, essentially make an emergency die. I've only made one, so I'm no expert. The die is just reference photo for discussion. I used O1
- drill & tap the center hole (I made my thickness a bit more than standard to compensate for next step)
- make slight relief on front side of hole (seat of pants chamfer)
- drill relief holes (this was a bit tricky to make clean breakthrough. I pre-drilled a hole then used larger dia end mill plunged in)
- make slot (I just entered with bandsaw)
- I skipped the lateral expansion jack screw because it is more fussy work, but if you need this, now is the time before hardening
- filed a flat on OD to engage with a retention screw on my die holder
- torch to red, oil dunk-a-roo, temper at 475F my toaster oven max
As long as your die holder has a conical set screw you can open it up a bit within reason. I prefer my shop made ones because they additionally have more radial set screws to retain the die since there are no dimples. Anyways, it worked. Not quite as good as a well made die, but better than some of my commercial offshore crap. I had to make some custom pushrods with a weird LH metric thread I wasn't keen on spending $50 & waiting a week. Stock was 303 stainless rod. Anything tougher might put up more of a fight so really depends on how many you intend to make. I've seen some small dies like below that have no adjustment slot at all so maybe a function of size?
Another option might be to do the whole thread/relief hole operation in a rectangular bar of O1 vs. fussing around on the lathe & die holder. Then the tail end of bar becomes a little integrated handle. Maybe not as easy to align though but food for thought
laser or edm?