Operation: Tap Wrench

today is international tap wrench appreciation day to commemorate I thought you and I could bring a new one into the world together let's make a copy of this tap wrench here these are two of the four maybe five tap wrenches that I own if you're the sort of person that enjoys judging a book by it's cover you may come off with the impression that tap branches are simply for holding taps and in this particular case you'd probably be about 90% correct but they're also good for screw extractors or hand dreamers I use them a lot for adjustable hand reamers but anything with a square drive on the back I think is probably fair game [Music] all tap wrenches are beautiful just some happen to be more beautiful case in point this is probably my favorite right here this is starett 91 be new I don't think they're all that expensive I mean the start name usually sets you back a couple extra bucks but you can find these use on eBay almost every day of the week it works great it's a pleasure to use feels wonderful in the hand just an exceptional heirloom quality tool that said and I couldn't tell you why exactly nine times out of ten when I need a tap wrench and I open the drawer I use this one here I had the smaller starett there's a smaller size than this for smaller taps I have it around somewhere but I broke the locking pin on the inside it's got a little V pin as you turn that clamps down on the square end of the tang of the tap or the tool that you're using when that one broke it somewhat scarred me emotionally so when I use this one I'm a little bit more careful about it just because I can't open this up to accept a half-inch tap I try to be a little bit more reasonable with this tool anything bigger within its capacity I reach for this one you I don't remember exactly where I got this a garage sale maybe or I found it in an old toolbox what I do remember is it being in pretty bad shape cosmetically and having to clean it up I threw it in with my other wrenches and with time I know I guess I suppose I have taken a liking to it except there's one or two things I don't quite like about it a few details I think are a little bit off they're subtle and I'd like to make another one but with some of those small changes incorporated if you'd like to follow along at home I'll add some drawings to the end of this video I plan to eyeball the build based on this tool and what I think I'd like to change then take those dimensions and share them at the end the only thing you need to do is figure out how to print a video now skill level for this project is pretty low I put it at about a 1 tools you'll need all over them this particular specimen appears to me to be homemade maybe a school project apprentice project or someone just wanted to make their own how many tools have a certain air about them and this one screams homemade to me that and the knurling is pretty weak I don't believe that's worn down I mean you'd have to do a heck of a lot of tapping to where it narrows down this far it looks like someone just figured it was good enough and stopped as soon as they saw the pattern start to develop or maybe it's a result of some combination of a hard steel and light lathe I don't know also the handles were turned between centers there's a center mark in there and a center mark on this end you might not usually see Center marks on mass-produced tools or at least not centers this large anyway come to think of it maybe that's why the knurling isn't very deep that's potentially a lot of side load to put on centers I'm getting ahead of myself this wrench is made up of two sets of two identical parts there are two handles and two jaws both of which are identical pairs the jaws have two holes in them one is a slip fit for the handle and the other is threaded there's a V groove of course too that provides the clamping geometry and again they're exactly the same so when you flip one insert the handle through one clearance hole and into the thread the other does the same thing each handle threads into opposing holes clamping the jaws and holding your tap [Music] first thing you should always do whether you're looking at a part or print is think through the order of operations we need a game plan to make this part that will come back to bite us in the butt it's not that hard to paint yourself into a corner where you're maybe 90% through your part and can no longer hold on to it or fixture it properly to do the rest for example in this case my first inclination is to generally rough a part out then come in and finish the details let's say we cut this to length and rough in the diameters and the taper kind of turn the overall form we might run into a problem cutting the threads since the middle is now tapered and difficult to hold on to same of course would go for the knurls with this long taper now in the middle we have something I'm an awkward part to hold on to to clamp on to to do the rest of the features so I think I'm gonna leave this cylindrical for as long as I can and come in and likely cut this taper last I don't think I need that Center in the threads but I may still need a Center in the back I'll try to make that as small as I possibly can I've got a piece of steel in the leaf there's a long piece in there more than enough to make this handle in fact probably make four of these and I plan to start with the threaded end I'll basically cut the diameter down to this shoulder then cut a reduced diameter for the thread and finally cut the thread in this way with longer stock if I make any mistakes here I can just move backwards a bit on the stock how do I cut this to length if I made a mistake I'd have to throw away the whole part and start over again [Music] and there it is one site complete I opted for slightly finer threads and I just chased them on with a dye one of these things now you could do that any way you like single point it double point it triple point it I just wasn't in the mood today if you've got a nice sharp die on these smaller diameters its run it on run it off and move on with the project just be sure you turn this the right direction lest you end up with left-handed threads quick tip though to get these things cutting well chamfer the lead in and reduce the diameter by about 10 percent of your thread pitch so for example this is 3/8 16 so I turned this entire section to 3/8 and the part I want the thread with the die I dropped by 10% of that thread pitch so this is 16 the pitch would be 1/16 that's point o 6 2 5 10 % is 6 though I reduced this diameter just for the length of the thread by 6 though same thing for metric of course if this was a 1 millimeter pitch I guess 1 and 1/2 is closer to 0 6 to 5 you'd reduce the diameter by 10 percent of one and a half millimeters so what you've been looking at here is actually the second side the second handle I've done the same thing on the opposite side again that was just a bit of an insurance policy had I made any bonehead mistakes I could just move back on the stock now that I'm happy with both ends I can just take the stock and snap it to the length I need all right there we have them to handle blanks that's extra stock I mean technically you could stop right there the rest of this is just dressing these up now I can choke up on these finish the end and cut the knurls the neural czar in got both parts done let me get you caught up I started off with a small Center in the end compare that to the one in the original this is the smallest Center drill I have just enough for me to hold on to to cut this taper and hopefully not get much chatter then I rounded the ends a bit I was just gonna face that and do a large chamfer then I decided to do a full round and as I set up for that I just kind of tuned it back a bit and what was just sort of this I don't know pillowed bottom not sure what you call that I know I kind of like it gives it that old-timey look the readiest bottom I did with a form tool just because I happened to have one but that would be easy enough to do with a chamfer tool just get an approximate radius that you like and blend it a bit with a file the form tool just helps with consistency between the two handles the knurl turned out well this probably would have looked better with a diamond pattern now it's got more that micrometer barrel kind of look but hopefully it works out I'm setting up to cut the taper what I'm doing here probably isn't strictly necessary I've mounted an aluminum cut off drilled and tapped it for this thread and I'm gonna use that to hold the handles would have probably been fine to mount the handle directly in the chuck this way I get a little bit further away from it from the jaws and I have a pretty close to repeatable position for the next handle so the taper I cut in the next handle hopefully matches this one exactly now we just come in and seat the tailstock I've said the compound at an angle anywhere between two and three degrees should probably be fine I said it's a two and a half because I'm not feeling particularly committal today and the slide is wound all the way in I can back it up but it won't go any further that's going to act as my stop with the tool extended as far as it'll go I'm gonna dial it in with the carriage lock my carriage in place and cut the taper with the cross slide this way hopefully I can't overshoot my mark and again both handles turn out the same [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] and just like that there they are hopefully you can make out I made the new ones a smidge longer increase the diameter a bit at the end what I was going for was more of a how to explain it and more accentuated feel in the taper the changes are subtle but the new one feels a bit more substantial I did hit these with some sandpaper kissed them with a file first just to remove the lathe tool marks then I think it was like three 2600 and maybe a thousand grit paper although the finer surface finish does make them look a little more attractive I did it more for corrosion resistance the higher the surface polish the surface finish hopefully the more resistant will be the rusting basically anyway I'm happy with those next up are the jaws you [Applause] these are the blocks that will become the jaws of the tap wrench roughed them out on the mill and in my case I did surface grind them that is completely unnecessary but this piece of scrap out of the bin happened to have two perpendicular faces already ground from some other project it was just too easy and tempting for me to throw them on the surface grinder and take them to final sighs actually regret grinding these I did it pretty rough in tumble you can see that surface finish isn't spectacular I'm hoping that buffs out but it might not anyway I've also drilled two of the holes I'll need in the first place jaw I'm gonna do an identical operation to this one here that side is drilled and reamed for a slip fit and this side is drilled to accept a tap to match the thread on the handles let me walk you through how I set this up in the vise and indicated them in that thing you see loaded in the spindle is an edge finder I'm not exactly sure where that name comes from but I'm using it to find the edges of my part as the tip moves closer to the work the wobble that you see starts to go away the two parts of the edge finder become more and more concentric until the tip kicks out when that happens I know I'm exactly one edge finder tip radius away from the work I can enter that radius into the Dro or set the scales on the mill handles and I now have one axis indicated or located since my part is in the vise below the top of the vise and I have no edges to pick up directly I can just edge find the jaws of the Vice that right there is the zeroth law of thermodynamics in action as it turns out leaving the part flush wasn't the smartest thing to do because I can't come in and cut the v-groove now so this part needs to be picked up again later do the edge finding again and drop in that Center roof edge finder has come in all shapes and sizes inch in metric but they're not all created equal if there's one place you shouldn't really skimp it's with an edge finder that said over the years I've bought my share of low quality ones I mean in theory they're all the same they have some part of the body or the tip not connected to the shank of the tool there's just a spring on the inside that sort of holds them together and the edge finder should be very easy to move almost like it's on an air cushion any grit or burrs or irregularities on those surfaces will affect the edge finding ability of that tool of course if you have burrs on your parts or Nick's and bumps you accidentally edge find against well that'll throw you off too but that's not really the edge finders fault edge finding does have some uncertainty to it depending on the quality of your edge finder and your technique often when I'm using an edge finder I'll come in to that surface a few times I'll try to get a feel for when that edge finder snaps over of course how accurate you need that to be depends on the project you're working on now in this case I'm edge finding all four sides and I'm using the half function on the Dro to find the center so the reference point I'm looking for is sort of the zero zero mark in the center of that block and I'm machining all of the features around it with respect to that point sometimes you might just pick up X&Y and you know that back corner might be your zero zero reference but this way since I'm coming in from two directions with the edge finder if my technique is consistent hopefully the edge finder error cancels out you don't need a dro to do that you could just use the scales on your machine edge find on one side measure how far you have to come over to edge find on the other side divide that by two [Applause] and they're the jaws you should have just seen me cut the groove in there I used a chamfer mill I cut a larger one in one side and a smaller one opposite that just in the off chance I need to use this tap wrench for a smaller tap those are some nice stress risers let's hope using a larger tap doesn't snap this John - if you don't have a chamfer mill can certainly do this with a regular end mill just tip the part up at 45 degrees or swing the head over come in with a regular flat bottom end mill you know whatever it takes compare that to the one I've been working off of this is the original from the original tap wrench the new jaws are slightly longer and the next step would be to round these corners off now a normal person might file those radiuses in or cut them in real slow it's something like a belt grinder but I happen to have one of these this is a radius again mill or an outside corner radius and mill I guess the opposite of a ball mill and it just happens to be the correct radius to round these parts off now in theory a tool like this cuts an external radius and practice however at least in my experience they usually just ruin your Parts I prefer to always cut chamfers before resorting to one of these things let's try it out together [Applause] that looks like a lot of run out on that tool see if I could tighten this set up a little bit bad call it maybe there's a chip in there [Applause] [Music] I'm gonna take this call it out and clean everything oh hey knock the collet and the collet holder down everything look clean I've seeded the cutter up as high as I could it's still weeble wobble that's not terrible I suppose it'll need some cleanup I'm starting to regret not having done this with a rotary table it would have been a little bit more setup up front but would have gotten me a perfect radius and uh probably a much better surface finish let me do the other side and I'll meet you back at the bench [Music] since last we met I finished the outside rounds and tapped two of the holes and now you're wondering how I finish the ends what you really should be asking yourself is how I tap these threads before finishing the tap wrench I brought the rounds in with a file and did the finish pass on the surface grinder how does surface grinder rounds is a story for another time but if I had to do this again I'd use a rotary table or the CNC router or belts and them honestly the radius cutter didn't work so hot and in editing the video too now I noticed these parts moving when I was using that form tool it's probably sped up but if you go back you'll likely notice that as I'm making progressive cuts the parts start leaning further and further in the vise I also notice that I lost the tip on my chant 4 mil and ended up with a wonky V groove there it is starts out okay ends up a little bit odd not exactly sure how that happens with this pinning tool but there you have it I may clean these up with a square bottom and mill but I'm noticing the larger taps and screw extractors I'd be using with this tap wrench seem to have chamfered corners and actually still fit fine but more than likely I'll fix those just on principle it's kind of funny I don't see these parts while machining them as clearly as you do though it's probably worth leaving a few defects in there so 150 years from now some snot-nosed kid can identify this as homemade while they're building a copy for their audience on one tube here they are side by side I'm not sure if you could readily pick up the differences other than mine is a little bit larger change the aspect ratio of the jaws I think it looks a little bit better more importantly proportionately the two screws are spaced further apart so when this is opened up to its max capacity the square end of larger taps fits a bit better I also like the feel the handles turned out well I like the larger diameters on the end and a slightly more aggressive taper hopefully this feels nicer when you're spinning your way back out of tapped hole you know how you kind of ride your tap wrench with your index finger on straight handle tap wrenches your finger sort of slides off and you lose control but I don't know that's some subtle stuff there and I think that's it for now be sure to stick around for the follow-up video where we test this out to see if it I'm just kidding there won't be a follow-up video plus I already used it to tap the two holes in the jaws so I know it works but as promised here is a drawing if you'd like to make your own as you saw maybe not much to it fun project and there's a lot of room to make your own tweaks customize it maybe make it a nice one for your special someone there aren't a lot of things that tell a person just how you feel about them like a custom tap wrench you can scale it to of course make a larger one or maybe a smaller one maybe you don't like that person all that much anyway I really enjoyed your company we should do this more often thanks for watching

Channel: This Old Tony

Views: 946,386

Rating: 4.9525762 out of 5

Keywords: tap wrench, tap, die, project, metal project, milling, lathe, metalworking, cutting tapers, cutting threads, edge finder, edge finders

Id: AHoHNt1NOZs

Length: 20min 5sec (1205 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 06 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/Nf1nk]

One of these days I will figure out that trick for snapping a steel bar into three bits with just my hands.

[u/Wiregeek]

ToT has the best grasp of production quality and humor injection in the field today.