I've gone through 7 or 8 tutorials on how to make a threaded bolt I've even tried just doing a spring and I can't get it to work.  Either some setting is off or I am just a complete NOOB and have no idea what I am doing.

I start the shaft at the origin and then put the helix around the outside of the shaft.  Every time I get to the point of creating a new plane at the point of the helix I get stuck.  I can't ever click on the helix to create the plane, or click at the point of the helix to use it as a reference.

The 1 thing I noticed about the tutorials is when they are doing it the helix is always highlighted and visible.  Mine always disappears from view unless I click on it from the drop down, but then as soon as I click on something else it goes away.

I'm I just completely up in the night on how to do this or is something else going on?