No, Bill, I didn't miss that. I get the prevention advice. Really, I do. I even got it the first time. Honest! Obviously I'd prefer not to break them in the first place. That's exactly why I have been buying new and used (but sharp) HSS taps for a while now and trying to research which work best for machine tapping of both through and blind holes, why I usually use the drill sizes for a smaller percentage thread now that I used to, why I'm looking into whether forming taps might work better for 304SS, and why I keep looking for an affordable tapping head with greater capacity than the small one I have. I hate breaking taps. I'm sure everyone else does too. Of *course* there are ways to minimize these and other risks, and advice about those ways is good to have and equally good to follow. I even have lots of questions about many of them.warmstrong1955 wrote:Ummm.....I think you missed the useful advice.OlderNewbie wrote: Just in case you had any doubt, your post offers *no useful advice* on the question I actually asked. Sigh.
Edit: And this is puzzling, as your answers to many other questions are so often helpful...
John
An ounce of prevention, is worth a pound of cure. Ever heard that one before?
Want to prevent broken taps......don't buy or use cheap taps. Same thing holds true with drill bits....and many other tools or tooling.
I have many cheap taps...and dies. They hide in a separate drawer from my 'real' ones. Chase a buggered up thread....light duty work....no biggie. If I build any intricate part, and it requires tapping, I use a high quality tap, and give it every chance of working correctly....alignment, not over torquing, etc.
Good advice....
Bill
But that was not what I asked about!
Please forgive me if I express grave doubt that a good quality HSS tap will never, ever break or accept for a moment the notion that nobody ever has ever broken or will ever break such a tap, whether from hitting an inclusion, accidental bottoming under power, trying to tap "one more hole" when it's become dull, because one misread the chart and drilled the wrong size hole, or for any other reason whether operator-induced or not.
I simply want to know what the best approaches are to take *when* they *do* break. Infinite advice about preventing breakage, and further stress on the importance that advice does not answer the question, and in this context it is just not useful.
John