Tapping Mode on Mill

Have a seig SX2.7 mill. It has a tapping mode where, by pressing a button, the motor reverses. I've never used it for two reasons, the first is that I can usually tap perfectly successfully without (famous last words) and the second reason is that I am scared to death of it! As there is no feedback, how can it be used without snapping a tap? Or is there a technique that I don't know about?

Many Thanks, David

Faith is what you nee! Avoid old worn taps and preferably use machine taps particularly on anything thicker than 1 x diameter as they clear the swarf better and seem to put less load on the machine.

I would suggest staying between M3 and M10 or 1/8" to 3/8", and go as slow as you can run without stalling to start with as the coarser pitches will see the tap going in quite quickly.

I originaly had an SX3 with the tapping feature and only used it on thin materials with a thru hole. Not on blind holes as too easy to bottom out and snap a tap and not on thick material.. Much prefer to do it by hand where you can feel any resistance and back off after half a turn to break the swarf. The reverse function on the mill is not that quick and will do a couple of revolutions before reversing.

Paul

Where possible I do most of my tapping on the mill, I don't have the built in tapping mode but I could see myself using it a lot.

I only have the smaller SX2P at the moment but is was very easy to fit a reverse switch. My range is up to M6 in steel and I can manage M8 in aluminium providing its not too deep.

I also machine tap most blind holes, I measure the hole depth, knock off 2mm and set the DRO with the tap contacting the start of the hole. Seems to work fine though it does concentrate the mind when close to the bottom of the hole, like Jason says you just need faith.

Thank you all but it still seems like black magic to me. Thank you Jason for the suggestion of spiral taps though.

I might give it a go on something unimportant.

David

Whilst at work we used tapping head adaptors to hold the tapps for machine tapping. These had a clutch built in and protect the tap from excessive force and you could drive the tap to the bottom of a hole without breakage.

David

There are two types of spiral tap, spiral point (aka gun tap) and spiral flute. They're for different applications. A spiral point tap pushes the swarf ahead, and is intended for thru holes. A spiral flute tap pushes the swarf back and out of the hole, and is intended for blind holes. Of course a spiral flute tap will work just as well on a thru hole, or by hand. Where possible I buy spiral flute taps - only one tap needed per thread size.

Generally I'm with DavidG. I prefer to use tapping heads; better torque and depth control, and much faster.

Andrew

Oh you can go faster with the tapping mode but need reaction times to suit so only really to be used on through holes. The SX2.7 does limit you to 500rpm but as mentioned once you start to get to the larger sizes things start to happen a bit faster vertically particularly as rpm rises!

Edited By JasonB on 11/08/2020 10:35:48

Have a look at Eccentric Engineering's Instagram postings. He has a very neat tapping machine, latest video shows it being used to thread a batch of toolholders for the Acute grinder.

I tap all the time on my mill, using the VFD running at 10 Hz or less (depending on the tap size and pulley in use). For blind holes I start the tap under power and finish usually off the machine by hand. The VFD is programmed for pretty fast stop/reverse

I haven't broken a tap yet (famous last words...) though once i forgot to reduce the speed - that was exciting!

David

Entirely agree about the "pucker factor" when first tapping using a mill.

Like David George and Andrew I'd always used tapping heads for power tapping. I have a full set of the Pollard / Etteco ones which work just fine on my Pollard 15AY drill and can be used on my Bridgeport if I feel upp to the knee cranking needed to make room. They are long, especially the big one.

I also have a simple spring loaded tap holder with a few small "sort of collets" that cover sizes up to 5 mm or so. That came in a freebee box of might be useful to you stuff. The spring travel is maybe 5/8" inch so its theoretically quite easy to keep the holder floating in the sprung range as the tap drives down. I've used it occasionally for smaller tapped holes but never been super confident.

Anyway came the day I needed an 8 mm through hole tapped in a job on the mill. Enthusiasm for knee cranking being at a low ebb I thought "Stuff it. Loads of folk on Practical Machinist say its easy peasy. Try it." and slapped a tap in the drill chuck, anointed the hole with Trefolex, dropped the Bridgeport into back gear, truned the motor switch to reverse and ... did it ....

Just like That

No fuss no drama, just a slight stretch to operate the quill feed with my left hand whilst hovering over the stop button with my right. I din't even mess with the Varispeed setting, odds are it was between 800 and 1,200 rpm in direct drive giving 100 to 150 in back gear as that suits most of what I do near enough.

Shoulda tried 15 years back. The tapping heads are starting to feel a bit neglected!

On the UK Bridgeports the knee mounted control box puts the stop button in a decent place to push with your knee if need be.

All it needs now is an axillary stop switch linked to the depth thingy so I can do blind holes.

Clive

PS does anyone know what size the collets are in the No 1 Pollard / Etteco head and where they can be got from.

I can see that I'm going to have to 'Man up'

Many Thanks all, David

I fitted VFDs to my Centec 2B (X-axis and spindle) and made a small control box that's attached to the end of the table. When the workpiece can be put on the table I always tap under power. I don't have spiral taps. The slow speed and forward/reverse switch provide excellent control for power tapping. I use the quill digital depth gauge when tapping blind holes.

I hope nobody minds me asking a related question. I tried tapping an M4 through hole into 15mm thick mild steel using my Sieg SX3 mill in tapping mode (at about 150rpm), using an Arc-Euro spiral flute tap. The tap made it through two of the holes, with a bit of a struggle, but broke in the third. The holes were all drilled with the usual 3.3mm tapping drill. The tap was held in an ER20 collet chuck, which in turn was held by its 20mm shank in an ER32 collet chuck, held in the machine taper. I used plenty of Rocol RTD cutting fluid.

What did I do wrong, if anything? I understand that a spiral point tap would have been more suitable for a through hole, and perhaps may have been less likely to break. I realise 15mm is quite deep for an M4 hole; could that have been the problem?

Any help gratefully received, as usual

Cheers, Mike

Edited By Mike Donnerstag on 15/04/2021 18:33:34

Too small a tapping drill, I use 3.5mm for M4 threads. Spiral point is better in the sense that it pushes the swarf ahead of the tap. But for smaller threads I prefer spiral flute as the swarf is ejected back out of the hole as a long spiral and without jamming. The long thread length doesn't help; does it need to be that long? I'd be looking at changing the design.

Andrew

I find on some of the smaller sizes the shank fills up most of the hole and if you go too deep the swarf can start to get stuck in the hole particularly once all the "threaded" part of the tap is below the surface. If it has to be that deep then back out half way through to clear the swarf and go at it again.

Looking at the specs for YG-1 spiral flute taps they suggest a max depth of 2.5D which ties in with the above.

Thanks Andrew and JasonB. It's a bracket for securing a small toggle clamp (Brauer P50). I don't think the thread needs to be that deep, though I'm happy to over-engineer it. I'm obviously on the limit of what a machine tap is capable of, though I expect a larger tapping drill would definitely help. However, for this application I think I'll revert to hand-tapping, guided (at least at the beginning) by a tap follower. I dare not risk another scrapped bracket due to a broken tap.

Once again, many thanks,

Mike

I have an SX3 and do use the tapping feature (not always though) treat it very gingerly unless it's a meaty size, say m6 and up or thereabouts. I don't think I would risk it on something like anything less than 6BA and then just a starter backing off frequently, to get the thread in line and finish off by hand.

Bill D.