I Need a Custom Thread Tap - Shop Made Tap

now I'm pretty sure most of you will know what this tool is for dare I might say you might have used one in the past that's right they're designed to break off in your work piece and make the rest of your day a lot more exciting So Exciting in fact that I had to remake this part however every now and then if the stars do align you do end up making passable threads now when it comes to choosing which tap to use there is a metric a jillion different types and sizes to choose from and that's not to be confused with that Imperial gajillion and which chat you choose is mostly dependent on the whole and application but 99 of the time I keep it simple and use a standard set of metric taps doing it this way just means I know that they're going to work with off-the-shore fasteners however I do have a bunch of less common or non-standard taps that I've had to buy over the years for one-off jobs and those are jobs that I couldn't do in the lathe for example this is an M13 by 0.75 pitch which isn't exactly unheard of but it ain't exactly common either but what I have here are M 7.9 by 0.06 millimeters which frankly I'd never heard of until I needed them and probably unsurprising given that these aren't a high production part these things don't come cheap I think they were close to 60 bucks each which frankly is a lot for a one-off hole and that sort of brings us here I need to make a custom tap for next week's project nothing too complicated just an M20 by one tap and In fairness I could buy that off the shelf but I think the turnaround to get one of those here was about two weeks and about fifty dollars for the tap and that's a good quality tap that's not terrible but given that it's only going to be used once I thought it'd be worth my while simply making it myself and it should end up being cheaper and it should only take about a day or two to make thank you [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] get too carried away with Machining us I do want to point out that making a tap is a little bit more complicated than simply taking a bolt and cutting some flutes into it [Music] [Music] I'm sure you've seen something like this on YouTube shorts and well does it work yeah I'm sure it will [Music] I know all the YouTube shorts like to test out in wood and obviously it was going to work in wood but then again what would you be tapping machine threads and wood [Music] now unsurprisingly it also works in aluminum but those threads are pretty chewed up and the tap seems to be tearing the metal rather than actually cutting it The Cutting force is also quite high and it seems to be binding up a fair amount in the hole I'd also be willing to bet that if you harden this you probably wouldn't get too far if you tried to tap steel you might get somewhere but I'm sure that thread wouldn't look all that great all this is to say that there are a few things that you need to consider in order to make a good cutting tap end of the day it still is a cutting tool and you need to consider all the cutting geometry [Music] [Music] and that is the tap taken roughly the size the shank is down at one end and the main body is close to the Chuck and that should make it a bit more rigid when I come to thread it I've also cut in the lead angle for the tap and that should help it start and cut straight I've set the gearbox to cut a one millimeter pitch and I guess let's get the threads caught now to keep track of the cut of using some threading wires now there is a formula on how to calculate the diameter that you want but there's also a bunch of online calculators which makes the job a lot easier foreign thank you and that is the tap blank done and because this isn't one of those fluteless form Taps I need to cut some flutes into it I've settled apart in the dividing head and the first thing I'll do is cut in the Square Drive [Music] all right [Music] foreign [Music] I can now chop off that front bit of stock and then focus on getting the cutting end of the tap all machined in [Music] okay so the part is now back in the dividing head and I've installed a six millimeter ball nose cutter the ball is actually going to be a critical part in establishing the flutes and by extension the overall cutting geometry speaking of which there are a few different ways of approaching this a lot of books including the machinery's handbook would have you cast a flute sort of straight down the middle of the tap now I'm sure this does work but a lot of the commercial Taps that I do own offset the flute sort of towards the back now this could be done for many reasons but at least to me it looks like it produces a much sharper tap and for that reason that that's the method that I'm going to go with [Music] um foreign [Music] and that is the first flute done the profile turned out just fine but it did seem to kick up a bit of a burr which I will need to clean up well I guess one down four more to go thank you and that is the tap cleaned up all in all is definitely starting to look the part the final thing left to do is Harden the tab and because I used a low carbon steel to make the body from I'll first need to raise the carbon content before I can then quench hardener and the process for doing this is relatively straightforward it first gets packed in a steel packing box with a mix of crushed up charcoal and about five percent sodium carbonate or then seal the Box up with a kiln cement thank you the backing box would get put in the furnace for about two hours and during this time the sodium carbonate and the charcoal are going to break down to produce carbon monoxide gas the carbon monoxide at this temperature can then diffuse into the steel and that raises the carbon content of the part which then allows it to be quench hardened and after linear cool overnight I can now Harden the tap and before I heat it up I am going to pop it in a tray of flux and the flux should prevent any scale from building up on the part as it gets heated in the furnace [Music] [Music] often tempering the pass or then soak it in a tub of sodium hydroxide and that should help break up any of the polymerized oil that's now sticking to the power finally I'll clean the flutes and hopefully that should sharpen them at the same time well I don't know about you but that definitely looks like a tap nothing else left to do but see if it works it's definitely producing a chip but the tool pressure is quite a lot higher than what you'd expect from a store-bought tap now I'm sure there's a few reasons for this but one big reason is we haven't actually added any relief to the cutter the tool pressure that I'm feeling is the tap rubbing and binding in the hole as I'm trying to make that cut so the simple fix is to add a bit of relief to The Cutting Edge you can probably see on the commercial tap the profile isn't exactly circular each Cutting Edge sort of tapers away at the back and that's all added to provide a little bit of relief for The Cutting Edge so what I'm going to try and do is add the same thing to my tap except a little bit less sophisticated and using the wrong tool for the job now I'm definitely not the biggest fan of using the mill like this since it will need a deep clean to remove all of the Grits but it definitely does work it's not going to be as pretty as a strawboard tap but I guess relief is relief and that is cutting a lot better than it was before I wouldn't call it a commercial tap just yet but it cuts and it produces some good threads which is really what I need all right well that's about it overall I would definitely call this a big success they certainly don't look too complicated but at least with these tools there is definitely a lot to consider when planning to make one and these are the same considerations they would need to make whether it's a six millimeter tap or a 30 millimeter tarp thanks for watching

Channel: Artisan Makes

Views: 103,418

Keywords: thread tap, hand tap, build, machining a tap, how to make a tap, making a thread tap, M20 tap, M20 x 1 tap, M20 x 1.0 tap, How to make a tap, tap build, shop made tap build, DIY tap, Machine tap, threading, single point thread cutting, thread cutting, tap wrench, metric thread, I need a custom tap, how to make a custom tap, machining a custom, custom thread tap, making a custom shop made tap, Custom M20 tap build, M20 thread Tap build

Id: 6qXinc7Ob5I

Length: 16min 37sec (997 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 12 2023