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March 3, 2010
the tiniest epic fail
by sven at 10:58 pm
You use a tap to thread holes. A tiny-tiny 000-120 tap costs $50…
Today, while making the groove end of a hinge, my one and only 000-120 tap broke…
Locking the part I was working on in my homemade jig…
Thus also ruining both the hinge and the jig.
Ouch.
posted by sven | March 3, 2010 10:58 PM | comments (4) | categories: stopmo
Comments
Feeling the tiny pain! ouch!
Posted by: Shelley Noble at March 4, 2010 2:53 PM
costly in time, money and morale. ouch!
Posted by: gl. at March 4, 2010 3:01 PM
Perhaps a very low torque, torque wrench could be used with the tiny taps?
I've found less tap breakages if I use the set of 3, taper, second and final taps. Obviously at $50 each that would be expensive. Plenty of tapping fluid is also advised.
You could try http://www.tracytools.com/ even with shipping from the UK they might be cheaper.
Posted by: Andy from Workshopshed at March 5, 2010 3:37 AM
Hi Andy --
I hadn't heard of a 3-piece tap set before. Sounds interesting. I suspect that not using enough tapping fluid was a factor in this tap breaking.
In general I've been doing really well with tapping lately, ever since I made this tap holder that works in conjunction with a drill chuck attached to the milling machine. The drill chuck is only tightened very loosely, and keeps the tap perfectly vertical and aligned. There's a photo in this post:
http://www.scarletstarstudios.com/blog/archives/2009/08/machine_shop_improvements_1.html
…The 000-120 tap is just so damnably small!
Posted by: sven at March 7, 2010 9:59 PM