Hello all,
We have finally installed the new to us tapping head on the Machine shop blue table. We will be installing the airline to it soon.
In an ironic twist, I used the tapping head to tap the holes in the table for the tapping head.
What is a tapping head you may ask? Well you use a tapping collet with the appropriate sized tap. This will allow you to tap straight holes in materials. We will be installing an organizer underneath the table for the taps & tapping collets.
Tim,
Fantatic.
Thanks for doing this.
I have never used one.
Are there tips and tricks to avoid busting taps at high speed (using spiral taps,
no tap smaller than 1/4", etc.?)
Best,
Jim
Using tools on the tools is the best use of tools.
I have used a similar device a lot . The device is clutched so the air motor won’t over-torque the taps (probably) Small taps in tough material may still be a challenge . You also get much better results using spiral form machine taps . Straight flute hand taps will be more likely to break because they don’t clear chips the same way.
Spiral flute certainly is the way to go. This head isn’t too fast. I’ll have to look up to see if it is torque limiting or not. I don’t have the model number in front of me, I have it in my pictures but that’s a needle in a haystack trying to find it.
I can’t find our exact model. This is the closest I can seem to find.
This appears to be it. Found it on YT of all things, linked to a site that no longer sells them. Took the model number from that video to google it.
It appears the collets themselves can create the torque limiting in this style. I will track down a set.
Once the tooling arrives and is set up, the plan is to produce a training video that will be available by a scannable QR code, so that users can scan the code, watch the video and be trained on how to safely use the pneumatic tapping head. We have done similar videos for the drill press and bandsaw in the machine shop and it seems to be working well . Would there be any interest in including in the video other basic information about how to safely use a tap by hand or manual tapping machine with decreased risk of breakage? I could easily add that to the video .
