A Tapping Machine

[gwrdriver]

I thought this little machine might be of interest,

I've been doing a lot of tapping (#2-56) the last few days which reminded me of novel tapping machine I saw on a visit to a friend in England some years ago. Touring his garden shed workshop, he showed me this tapping machine which he rescued from a dumpster. I wouldn't have recognized right off what its purpose was, but he recognized it immediately and quickly adopted it. It's a very simple but ingenious machine.

The horizontal drive shaft drives single friction-faced cone which lies between the two opposing spindle cones. The spindle can move vertically, but is limited to the range allowed by contact with the driving cone.

After adjusting its position, the table is raised and lowered by a rack lever. So with the work piece fixed on the table, raising the table also raises the spindle where its lower cone contacts the driving cone. This turns the spindle in the CW direction, advancing the tap, with the table following along.

When the required tap depth is reached the table feed is slacked, ending spindle contact with the drive cone, which stops the spindle. Lowering the table then engages the upper side of the drive cone thus reversing the spindle to CCW and the tap is withdrawn.

It's really quite brilliant and works beautifully and quickly. At that time my friend was engaged in small batch building of Gauge-1 live steam locomotives and he told me it never breaks even a tiny tap. Unfortunately I didn't take note of the Mfg or country and neither of us had ever seen one like it.

[Russ Hanscom]

Cute. Possibly a kit?

[gwrdriver]

You can see it had a nameplate on the base, and I don't think most home or in-house builders would go to that trouble. But you never know.

[jcfx]

gwrdriver, in the first photo there is what looks like a manufacturer tag on the base of the tapper, right below the motor
do you have the original un-resized photo ?
Enlarging the original might give a clue to the manufacturer.
It looks like a sweet little tapper.

[gwrdriver]

Not enough rez in the original photo to read anything.

I've since posted this to a British site and there was one company in England who produced these in various models under various names.

[Colonial]

G’day all,
The tapping machine pictured looks very much like a Sensitive Tapping Machine with its outer housing removed made by Waldown in Australia (https://motofaction.org/tool-reviews/wa ... formation/ )
or an Oldak and Apex Machine from the UK (http://www.lathes.co.uk/oldak/). I have no idea which came first, they appear to be identical.

There is some video of the Australian version on the Instagram account of “eccentric_ engineering” posted 10 August 2020.

I want one and its bigger brother.

Enviously yours,
Paul

[Kay_B]

The machine, as I understand it, is not the newest, but it looks quite reliable. Sometimes time-tested devices are really more useful and easier to use than any newfangled things.

[gwrdriver]

Quite a bit of information is coming out of the woodwork. I've learned the Hamilton Watch Co. also made these for the US market.
https://youtu.be/H6xiC23YSak

[Harold_V]

Not to diminish the tapping machine in any way, but the use of a *Procunier tapping head pretty closely emulates the performance, plus it offers the added bonus of a quicker withdrawal of the tap from the hole (speed is doubled for withdrawal).

*I own no stock in Procunier, but I have experience with other types of tapping heads and prefer the Procunier, hands down.

H

[jscarmozza]

Feast your eyes on this Haskins tapping machine that I bought about 5 years ago for $100.00, I couldn't pass it up. It works great, I just don't have enough holes to tap.