Taps & dies

The Denying Dutchman · Taps & dies

Since lots of tools are cheaper in the UK than in the Netherlands, I did a search on Ebay for a nice metric tap&die set. But, I have no clue what UK quality brands are what not so a little help would be appreciated.

I'm looking for reasonable quality for a fair price. (Taps and dies which get lots of use will be replaced eventually for more expensive ones.)

Roly Williams

It's pot-luck with Ebay. I've used these people a few times with good results:
http://www.tapdie.com/

spanner_monkey

A lot of ebay ones tend to be the cheeper ones. Also most sets tend to be of the cheeper veriaty too. Bets bet is to buy individual sets of HSS (high speed steel taps).

Just as a side note. The cheep taps are usualy fine if only for use in brass not steel and less common sizes tend to be expensive even when of cheeper quality but will last if well looked after.

Dean W

I suggest you do not buy any of the low quality offerings. To put it plainly, they are cheap because they are junk.
The link that Roly put in his post is a place that sells very good tooling. I have bought from them a number of
times, and have been pleased with each transaction, and I am picky about my threading tools, (since I use them a lot).

The Denying Dutchman

Don't worry I wasn't planning to buy a £10 set.

The reason I want to buy a set is that I have no clue which threads I will find in newly bought steam engines etc. and to buy quality taps of all sizes which might never be used is a waste of money. The taps I have left are from the stone age. (the old 3 step taps)

For the common sizes Roly's link looks good and not too expensive, quite affordable actually.

On the other hand, machine taps also look interesting especially the roll taps, (one tap for bottom and through holes) but I'm afraid a roll tap isn't going to work on a small lathe/mill. Does anyone here has experience with roll taps?

Whatever taps (and dies) I'm going to buy, I'm planning to add a variable left/right controlled, geared DC motor to my lathe to make life easier. I know it can be done by just turning the spindle by hand, but why bother.

Dean W

Paul, if my guess is right, then by "roll taps" you probably mean forming taps. They do not have any cutting
edges as we know it and are familiar with on regular thread cutting taps. A roll forming tap is usually used in industry,
and basically are used under a good deal of power and pressure to "form" threads, rather than cutting them. They
would be difficult to use in a home shop. They require a substantial machine to operate. As they are fed into a hole,
they simply upset metal around the threads on the tap, kind of like knurling. I would recommend sticking with regular
thread cutting taps.

The Denying Dutchman

Those are the taps indeed, I already suspected that those were unsuited for the average home shop. Thanks for confirming.

The Denying Dutchman

Not too long ago I won a huge tap & die set on German Ebay. I suspected it to be a nameless variant of the Mannesmann Greenline set and although the overall quality of the set looked reasonable, one tap wrench was no good at all and two taps were identical instead of taper and second. So I sent the seller a complaint about it. They asked me to take pictures of the faults, which I did, and after that they promised me to sent replacements. To my surprise they didn't send me replacements, but a whole new set!

Since two identical sets are too many I decided to sell them on a Dutch auction site. So instead of two sets I now have zero sets, but twice the money I paid! Dancing banana

Now to buy me some quality taps & dies. Which will cost me a whole lot of money.

steamboatmodel

What are the one from Tracy Tools http://www.tracytools.com/ like? I have a couple of engines and plans that use BA and wondering if I should buy the taps and dies or try converting to another thread?
Regards,
Gerald.

The Denying Dutchman

They definitely have good prices.

As for the threads, if you are only going to use BA taps for those engines I'd convert it. On the other hand BA taps can be useful if you happen to find an UK made engine which needs a new insert etc.

Freespawn

Dean W