Tapping straight

The pictures show a lot of work making stock look like castings. Which is an odd thing to do on a tool.

The Mason Master article is in 292 page 15

For another pillar tool made without castings have a look at the following document:-

**LINK** ( https://www.haythornthwaite.com/149 Pillar Tool.pdf )

That was made larger than the GHT design but the same type of construction could be used at pretty much any sensible scale, you just need to work around pipe fitting sizes.

Edited By Keith Long on 28/03/2022 23:51:42

Thank you. Drat ! Haven´t got it.

Cheers

Peter

Nice looking barstock one at the bottom of this thread

Over the years have made various ntapping aids.

The ones most used are:

The spring loaded centre type, in the Mill

A pillar type tool made from an old drill stand and a piece of box section with two sleeves welded in and reamed afterwards, to carry a spindle with a small drill chuck on the lower ens, and short T bar on the upper.

The box section can be clamped up and down the pillar, and swung around it to align with the work, (Usually held in a cheap drill vice )

At one time such devices were available commercially.

For the lathe, I made up an arbor for the Tailstock, so that a home made ER25 collet holder could slide along it.

This was inspired by a sliding Die holder set up

The holder is slightly loose fit on the arbor, so that the tap can not only slide, but float to ensure that it follows the drilled hole.

Howard

I used to use a spring centre, either in the tailstock, mill or pillar drill, but this didn't work for small taps where the diameter of the rod was larger than that of the tap. One of these from Warco proved to be the solution.

Spindle Tap Wrench

I assume the link will be OK with mods as I can see their ad on the right.

Brian G

If machining (and not using hand-held drills), tapping with the same machine setting is possible every time. Just change the drill for the tap. Only when away from the mill, lathe or pillar drill, does any alignment problem need to raise its head.

You would need a spring-loaded tap-guide if there is no quill on your machine. Otherwise, no problem - either power tapping (if appropriate) or turning the machine chuck by hand to at least to start the thread in proper alignment.

I’ve never got round to making a spring loaded tapping guide. Just starting the thread is usually perfectly adequate for finishing the thread by hand.

WIP

WIP

Made to take the Pillar Tool accessories.

This is my tapping 'machine' made from mostly spare material and a ground column.

Used a few of the details from Geo Thomas design,

Sorry I Can't rotate the image !

Edited By JasonB on 29/03/2022 18:33:49

Richard B's "machine" is not unlike the one that I made from a piece of box section, a spare small drill chuck and a redundant stand for a pistol drill.

The main thing is that the spindle, column and base are all perpendicular to each other in both planes.

I'll try to post a picture in my albums

Howard

What's so odd about that?

Posted a picture in anew album, but cannot rotate it!

The original opens up correctly oriented, but the one in the album is 90 degrees out.

Sorry, you can see how rough it is, but still does what is required.

Howard

Here's my approach to this issue. :-

I have a tap-holder (jacobs chuck) and two different sized die-holders on 1/2" shanks, and A pair of MT adapters for my lathe tailstock and mill spindle - on the drill-press I just use the chuck jaws. This set-up will deal comfortably with thread-sizes ranging from 12 BA to 3/8", and can be used to start larger threads which can then be finished by hand. If a non-cylindrical thread's position and alignment are critical, I'll usually set it up in the milling vice to ensure accuracy.

Use in lathe tailstock (the die holder is hollow) :-

Mill spindle :-

Drill-press :-

I too have suffered from the dread 'image rotation' issue, my apologies.

Edited By JasonB on 30/03/2022 14:50:40

Thank you Jason B.