Do the threads need to be cut into holes? You need a tool called a faucet, and a hand-operated tool like the one shown here is economical and effective. The cutting head of the tap works by entering a pre-drilled hole, and it is important to keep the tool straight during this process. It’s one thing to tap a few holes with a steady hand and a precisely calibrated eyeball, but when you need to tap multiple holes, it’s worth getting a little help.

A common tool that helps keep the faucet straight and gently press down is called a faucet follower, but [Tony] has a lot of M4 holes to tap, and there is no time to order one and wait for it to arrive. Instead, he turned a cheap tap into a tool that can be fixed on the mill chuck and can slide up and down freely as needed. result? Manually operated taps, which are definitely orthogonal to the workpiece, make the job of cutting a large number of threads more enjoyable.

Percussion is not only applicable to metal. You can also cut the threads into wood. Be sure to check out this simple method. Use threaded rods or lag screws to make amazing wooden faucets in the store. Of course, the need for tapping can be avoided by using threaded inserts in suitable materials.

Even simpler is the "workbench block". A thick piece of wood or metal with the vertical hole the same diameter as the faucet. For situations where there are not too many holes in the plane, this is the simplest and cheapest method. You can buy ready-made ones. You can make them. No drill press is required. If you are skilled and adventurous, just put the faucet in the cordless drill and tap it. The faucet will find its way. sometimes. most. Often enough. If the tap is large enough, it will not break, and it is small enough that the drill bit can turn it.

Almost this. I always make a tap guide by clamping a trash hexagon head bolt on a lathe, facing the head smoothly and drilling through the tap shank size. Now it is OpenSCAD: Put the tall cylinder on the disc, subtract a hole through the two, slice it, and print it.

There is a chuck in the picture. No adapter required

To be precise, this is what I did the last time I had to punch

^ This...can someone explain why he didn't simply clamp the tap in the drill press?

Turning the tap by hand in a drill press is not so easy, especially when you need one hand to press the quill on the spring. If you just hold the hood of the chuck and twist it, then it will loosen the chuck first. Power tapping with bench drills is difficult, and they often do not stop fast enough.

I have never encountered a problem when doing this, and I have done a lot. If this tool makes it easier for you, please build one and use it. Different people perform the same task in different ways. I usually only use the drill press for about one-eighth of the rotation, between 3 and 5 turns, before switching to a more traditional tap handle. I just want to make sure I start directly.

The end of the tap is square and will not be centered in the drill chuck.

@rob Thanks... My faucet has a square top, but a round handle, which is easy to fit in the chuck.

@andy Thank you...that is the most meaningful...I assume that it is tapping hard, but with tapping, you cannot simply set the depth and keep rotating like a drill.

The calves will never be round, otherwise they will bind.

Inexpensive taps are elliptical, have opposite cutting surfaces, and will not be centered in the chuck.

It is better to have three 120-degree cutting surfaces, and may be centered.

Some taps have a 120-degree spiral downward and rounded cutting surface along the shank.

There are many sheet or plate taps that are not mentioned here, and then blind wires are different.

The tap shank is perfectly round. There is no difficulty in clamping them in the chuck (although they are smooth and hard and slide easily). The cutting edge is removed, so the part is not round, but the shank is round and the end is square. Tapping chucks usually clamp the shank to center the tap, and there is an extra part at the end to clamp the square to prevent slippage. This is sometimes screw-driven (rubber elastic chuck in the tapping head), but there are also ER chucks with a square on the back for rigid tapping in CNC machine tools. I made a video about making a custom faucet and how to get the proper relief and cutting angle: https://youtu.be/fo7SwanH50I

Andy above is right. Rob was completely wrong.

I am a tool and mold mechanic, and I am pretty sure I know taps better than most people.

There are actually many types of taps, but the handle is always round, except for the small square handle at the end of the main handle.

I recently discovered a truly unique antique faucet, which was only used in watch factories more than 120 years ago. Their cross-section is actually triangular and very tapered-very small for the smallest watch thread in the balance wheel. Think of something the size of a sewing needle.

Hammel Riglander and Bergeon’s standard tabulation taps usually come in groups of 3-there is a starting tap, then an intermediate tap for most of the cut, and then a third finishing tap for threading to the final size. Usually used as a forming tap, I believe.

I found these from a person who may have the only supply of these in the United States, and he has the equipment to make them in the first place.

There are some crazy things in the faucet world, which don't even really get into the formed faucet, which works differently from the cutting faucet.

Cheap faucets don't have the handle you mentioned. They have only square cross-sections and cutting bits.

The cutting bit is not round.

The terminology differs in different countries, but I hope people realize that I am talking about the cutting part of the faucet when I mention binding.

I am cheap, so I have a lot of cheap faucets, but I have never seen it like you described. Can you provide a link to an example? I'm curious.

Most faucet handles I have seen have a tapered center at the top of the handle. Simply place a center in the drill chuck, press down with the drill press handle and turn the tap handle.

Exactly. This is something I have done many times. This is why the conical center hole appears!

What is needed is not some new gadgets, but knowledge.

Power tapping is another matter altogether now.

Ding! This is what I did. On a metal lathe, I made a pointed rod with a shoulder that rests on the claw tip of the drill chuck. Drill holes, change to pointed rod drills. Insert the end of the faucet into the hole, pull the handle of the quill pen, and put the dot into the turf on the top of the faucet handle. Turn the faucet handle while pulling down the sleeve handle.

Simple and simple, because there is no movement after drilling, the tap will be inserted completely straight.

Turn the faucet handle while pulling down the sleeve handle.

I have a large fishing weight (maybe one kilogram) and I use a rope and a hook to tie it to the handle of the quill.

In addition, as mentioned earlier, rotating the chuck manually is troublesome because it is easy to loosen. I have an old belt-driven press. I open the top, remove the belt, and turn the pulley manually, which also has some mechanical advantages over rotating the chuck.

Also not mentioned is oil-use it! I installed a custom squeeze oil tank on my press-the kind with a flexible tube that can be easily positioned. I use a concentric "choke wire" to operate the fueler from the foot pedal so that I can free my hands. This is convenient for tapping, but it is very useful for light milling using a cross vise, or even simple drilling.

My general procedure is to turn the pulley until I feel a certain resistance, then back a quarter of a turn to remove the chips, and repeat until it's done. If you just keep turning without backing up occasionally, you will definitely break the faucet—especially the smaller faucet.

I usually use power tapping. I installed a frequency converter (with a 1.5kW motor!) on my mill and I have adjusted the frequency converter to have low torque at low RPM (so I adjusted the torque compensation in another way).

So I just put a tap on the chuck and adjust the frequency/revolutions until the motor has enough torque to cut the thread. I can use this to attack at least the blind holes of M5. When it hits the bottom, the faucet stops because the torque is not enough to cut the faucet.

Power tapping is obviously feasible, but it is not suitable for fine pitch or any hard materials (such as tool steel) or tapping rubber (incolnel) or materials that are easy to work hardening (also incolnel).

I never do this when it’s a blind hole, you really risk bottoming and stripping, or worse, breaking the tap in the hole.

It sucks thick metal plates, but is suitable for wood and plastic. So is brass.

I think the terminology here is wrong. The tool shown is a tap wrench. "Tapping" is the actual cutting drill.

This is a kind of Americanism, just like what Americans call a drill.

I am an American, and I just treat it as a lazy editor.

We call these T-handle tap wrenches in the industry

I will call it a faucet wrench.

I just did a bunch of 4-40 seconds on my drill press this morning and did what I usually do: It’s really easy to unload the drive belt on my drill press, 5 seconds of one-handed operation. So I put the faucet on the chuck, took off the belt, and turned the top pulley by hand. Of course, this work is in a vise, so I can free up my hands to handle the quill feed. It's very simple, straightforward, and super fast. The xy table can also be arranged quickly.

Place the tap driver (wrench) on the sliding shaft of the chuck to release the sleeve feed hand so that you can hold the workpiece with your other hand. This can work faster for multiple clicks to move.

This is how I often tap on the machine, or if on the bridge port, I set the spindle to neutral.

4-40 is something that I only start the first few threads on the machine, and then I usually finish them by hand with a lightweight tap wrench and use a lot of cutting oil. It's a small, thin line, I personally think that those that require a hand feel to be safely completed from the machine, you will lose a lot of sensitivity

Fisher made a simpler spring-loaded reversible tap follower-just a tight spring-loaded point and a cone on the other end.

Place the tap wrench on the tap, then place the spring-loaded point on the back of the tap (or taper, if it is a small tap with a ground end instead of the center point), push the sleeve down on the drill press, and then turn the tap wrench.

The same result-buy 10 dollars, it is easier to make from scratch than this style. But you also need an ordinary tap wrench.

The picture shows a ratchet tap wrench, right? How about reversing and clearing schraf. With a tap, I use a cordless drive and reverse the car, usually not trying to do it one way. No damage to the faucet results, and quickly. Using a nickel-cadmium battery to drill a dime, you can drill one onto the sliding arm and make a drill press/tapping tool. The pedal feed is too.

"Are you sure it is orthogonal to the workpiece"? The definition of orthogonal is very broad. How about "getting to bed normally"? Assuming it is pushed onto the bed is normal. Maybe just "definitely repeatable" is a better description. I have a feeling that orthogonality is at the tipping point of becoming the next "use case", so it is meaningless.

Let's look at "pre-drilling". what is that? Do you buy by dozen or by weight? Pre-drilling should be an operation you perform before drilling. Maybe it is the center punch. Or maybe align the drill bit. If not, how is it different from drilling? Is it just redundant like the "what you want to do is what you want" common in many Youtube tutorials? "You want to drill this hole in advance so that you will have a hole you want to drill"?

> You can also cut the thread into wood

I like to knock hardwood (and then use brass bolts with various heads). It is harder to pull out than a screw. Try to use a pre-drill one or two sizes smaller than the size recommended in the table for tapping metal. The wood will also become hot. And you still have to log out regularly. Beware of breaking your faucet.

A few days ago, Adam Savage wrote a full 40-minute article on this subject.

https://youtu.be/XVEww6Ylw5c

Adam Savage just made a video about keeping taps aligned... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVEww6Ylw5c&t=1361s&ab_channel=AdamSavage%E2%80%99sTested

This is a convulsive, extremely painful video, but the content is great.

My grandpa would put the tap in the drill chuck and let it pull the drill chuck.

Hi everyone-if I can invest my 2 cents. .. Back in November 2008, I won the competition at Makezine's Hacked Gadgets Workbench family seminar. This is the link.

http://hackedgadgets.com/2008/11/16/hacked-gadgets-workbench-contest-winner/#more-1775

The reason I quote this is because if you look farther than the 1/2 way mark (search for attachment -B-), you will read some of the skills I have learned in tapping over the years (12 years of mechanic + Teacher of CNC Trade School for 24 years). Basically, only buy a machine faucet (not a manual faucet), use a tapping block to make the faucet square (as Bob said in the first article), buy a ratchet faucet handle (I have a large and a small one), Use lubricants, etc. Also, in order to stay organized, I use a transparent end mill box (transparent tube with end caps) to hold the taps, tap drills, gap drills, and sample nuts and bolts. This way you don't have to waste time looking for things.

The link in the reference is broken. You can use a self-made EDM machine to remove the damaged taps, which may look like this:

https://www.instructables.com/id/EDM-Electrical-Discharge-Machining/

Thank you for browsing your store, a resource link worth considering is McMaster-Carr on https://www.mcmaster.com/

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