Tapping 2-64 is Stainless steel

[Froneck]

Received the spring tap guide, it's not the one listed in the photo or description! Heavy Duty version! But for $9.00 I'll not waste my time to send it back. I'm sure I can use it for bigger taps. Did make the knurled washers as shown in Joe Pie's videos. They worked great! I used 3/4" 6061 rod because I had a piece. Used flat point 8-32 set screws that were placed in center of the hole. Tightened with the short end of the hex wrench in my hand as tight as fingers could tighten on the round section of the shank. Made one for each tap style, taper, plug and Bottoming Vermont HSS tap set (new) and one OSG spiral point bottoming tap (new). Alternating the style until the OSG tap went in 6 turns! Was nice the set screw grip on the tap was not enough to break the tap, it would slip before the tap broke. Not sure how much more torque the tap could withstand but it was enough for the taps to rotate about 1 turn each sequence. Item is tapped and no taps were broken!

 

[mhajicek]

I have some 000-120 threads in Ti coming up. I have threadmills on order.

 

[EPAIII]

For #2 and smaller taps I use a pin vise for the handle. I have a couple of them with the spinning head so I can rest that head against the palm of my hand and use my thumb and index finger to turn the tap. This gives you the needed, sensitive feel of what is happening and allows you to back out at the first sign of trouble. It has been a long time since I broke a small tap and probably never after starting to use the pin vise handle.

An added advantage of this handle, used this way is that your hand stays in the same position so after first aligning the tap square to the work, that does not change much.

#2 in stainless shouldn't be bad with sharp taps. I find that hand tapping down at that size works best with a shop made holder for the tap. I use a bit scrap rod stock in the 3/8" range to reduce my leverage for more sensitivity. Drill a reasonably close fitting hole and glue the tap into the rod. For speed use UV cure superglue and a quick heating with a propane torch will kill the bond and make the shank of a broken tap pop out for re-use.


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This is a M1 and a 0000-160 tap for reference. At this point I haven't broken an M1 in a year or so...my record on 0000-160 in 304 stainless is not so good and I've gone to custom threadmills instead.