Tapmatic tales

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bilinghm

Joined
Nov 10, 2005
Messages
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I recently bought a used Tapmatic 30X on Ebay, and I finally got it rigged up on my mill-drill this evening. Holy crap is this great! I can tap a 4-40 hole in about 3 seconds. Perfect, no fuss-no muss-no bother. The alignment of the tap to the hole doesn't even have to be exact, the Tapmatic self aligns. It used to take several minutes per hole, and I always feared breaking a tap. Hand taps are a thing of the past for me!
 
Yes, these things are very nice.
Another one to keep an eye out for is the 'Accu-tapper.'

This is a bit different than a Tapmatic, but doesn't require collets and opens up some interesting drilling (yes, drilling) possibilities on irregular-faced material such as stag scales, etc. --essentially allowing you to drill from the flat side rather than the bumpy side. (This should be self-explanitory if you look at the machine).

Anyway, I agree ... the tapping head is the way to go!
 
bilinghm said:
I recently bought a used Tapmatic 30X on Ebay, and I finally got it rigged up on my mill-drill this evening. Holy crap is this great! I can tap a 4-40 hole in about 3 seconds. Perfect, no fuss-no muss-no bother. The alignment of the tap to the hole doesn't even have to be exact, the Tapmatic self aligns. It used to take several minutes per hole, and I always feared breaking a tap. Hand taps are a thing of the past for me!
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You will dull taps before they break now. We used to use them at a place where I worked. We tapped extrudes on a flywheel,Two shifts a day about 1500 cycles a shift. We changed the taps about once a week.
 
The speeds are a thing to keep watch on. I used to tap titanium bike parts and get something like 3 or so parts per tap. The stuff just kills taps. Slowing the speed down and finding the right tap and coolant, I was able to do around 1000 parts per tap.
 
btboone said:
The speeds are a thing to keep watch on. I used to tap titanium bike parts and get something like 3 or so parts per tap. The stuff just kills taps. Slowing the speed down and finding the right tap and coolant, I was able to do around 1000 parts per tap.
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It might be helpful to specify what those would be for whichever materials.

Regarding titanium, I've come to greatly prefer roll taps--especially for the small sizes. They're much tougher and make a better thread. Also, it seems the black oxide coating HSS is preferred for roll taps in titanium over the more expensive materials/coatings. I haven't tried all that's out there, but this is what Balax recommended. I heeded the recommendation and have been happy with the results.
 
Wow, I never had any luck with roll taps, they would just break off immediately for me, but the threads I was doing were m8 x 1, so they weren't very fine. Heat buildup in titanium is amazing, and the material galls and welds to the tap, making a creaking sound as it starts wearing out. My CNC lathe chooses speeds and feeds based on materials, and tapping the 6al4V titanium started pretty agressive like around 80 fpm or so. I ended up somewhere around 6 or 10 fpm. There didn't seem to be a hard lower limit. I found that blasting it with coolant actually made things worse because the tap would run over the chips that the coolant was jetting into the hole. I had to have a steady but not a directed stream of coolant on the OD and the hole of the part. I only had luck with black oxided stub length taps from Greenfield or Sossner. When I started making bottom brackets for bikes, I used to go through buckets of taps. As I said, by slowing things WAY down, the taps lived considerably longer. I assume the same thing will apply to steel on a lesser scale.
 
Hey boone,that is one of the creepy characteristics of a form tap(the squeaky,creaky sound),and if you're using a CNC (or the tapping head)they snap (I don't mean break) (I mean snap as in the sound) when the spindle changes direction(even brand new taps). You said your lathe picks speeds and feeds based on materials ? You do know that you can manually change that don't you ? Or just set the parameters differently to change the "pre-sets".edit to add I should have read a little more carefully:) I see you know this already...sorry buddy ;)
Bilinghm , yes Tapmatics are a nice addition to the tooling cabinet :thumbup: . They really shine when you have hundreds of holes to tap :)
 
Yup, David I do override the lathe suggested speeds wherever necessary. It sometimes picks some scary aggressive feeds and speeds. It will run aluminum at a depth of around 5/16" and .015" per revolution. All this when spinning something like 5000 rpms for a small diameter part! I don't do tool crashes that fast on my machining center! :p

I have found over the years machining titanium that it will machine just fine at the recommended speeds if you keep track of tool life and change out the carbide inserts at the proper times. I've also found that you can get several times the tool life simply by slowing things down. I started by buying expensive inserts specially designed for turning titanium. They would do well until they died explosively, taking my $100 part with it. I ended up using the cheap $3 inserts and running them slowly, and would get much better tool life, and they would dull rather than shatter, so wouldn't ruin the parts. I found the same to be true with drills. Carbide worked great, right up to the time that they explode and ruin the part. Cobalt worked better in that they would dull and not ruin the part. Cobalt will die quickly if it's not kept cool though. HSS isn't really an option for drilling.

For me, the machine time wasn't the critical path operation. It still isn't with my titanium wedding rings and pens. It takes longer to finish the parts than to cut them. The critical path is selling them faster than the machine can make them, so for me, it makes sense simply to make rings with a 5 minute cycle time rather than to push and cut them in 1.
 
Speaking of speeds, the Tapmatic chart recommends very fast speeds, around 2,000 RPM for the 4-40 taps I so commonly use. Does this high speed actually work better or is slower wiser? My mill drill top speed is around 1,500. I have been experimenting at 500 RPM with pretty good results.
 
I tend to be more conservative. If 500rpms works, there's no reason to change from that. Being a tool company, they want to quote the fastest speed that works effectively, so users where tap speed is critical path can work to the utmost efficiency. I don't think there's any downside to slower though. There's a fixed amount each tooth can bite, which is dictated by the pitch of the tap, so I don't suppose it should matter if you went slower. It is different for milling with a set feed, where each tooth would then have to take a bigger bite.
 
boone it appears I can't teach you anything you don't already know ;) , but rest assured I'm taking notes from you :) . What type of machine & control are you running ? Ti rings eh ? I made some simple ones for my nieces(Christmas) on my mill out of some .220 Ti plate I had laying around. I just ramped a .250 solid carbide e-mill into it and generated the correct I.D., then the O.D. leaving a thin web to saw cut. I then finished by hand ( file work,anodized,etc.) . They turned out pretty good.
bilinghm I think you are correct in your thoughts about the speeds & feeds recommended by tapmatic (or like boone was saying,every tool manufacturer) . I think alot of times speeds and feeds are for "optimum conditions" ie. rock solid set-up , not tool steel , correct coolant for the job , brand new sharp tool etc. I automatically drop the recommended S & F when starting a new job and bump it up from there as I see the job running sucessfully ( I should say I used to ) I'm not working by the "second" anymore. I'm in "my" shop now and the pace has slowed considerably now that I don't have "the man" breathing down my neck :yawn: I am in 100% agreement with boone in regards to his statement about the 5 min. cycle verses the 1 min cycle.Especially when it comes to broken taps. Sometimes that will "trash" the part just because you'll spend more time and money trying to get it out than just making a new one.A new one you wouldn't have had to make in the first place if you would have just slowed it down a bit to begin with :) I only remember seeing recommended S&F very close to actual only one time , that was a Face Mill w/ ceramic inserts machining cast iron. It was almost like running the machine(Mazak MTV) in full rapid while making chips. Talk about a pucker factor :eek: boone have you ever tried FeCL3 for removing a broken tap in Ti ?
 
I have a Mazak QuickTurn 6T and used to have a larger QuickTurn 15 when I made bike parts. The 6T is a small but fast (7000 rpm) and accurate lathe. It goesn't have belts or gears; the spindle is integral to the motor. It has the Fusion 640T control and has 12 tools. I make my living making titanium rings now and selling them via my website on the Internet. I've probably made over 10,000 rings by now including tension set engagement rings and precious metal inlay ones. It's quite a niche market and does very well for me.

I used to make my own line of bike stuff including titanium cogs and chainrings, bottom brackets, cranks, and a few other things. I find that I use a lot of the same processes as knife makers such as using mokume-gane and I have wood and acrylic inlay rings that are similar to knife handles. I use a lot of the same suppliers. I'm always looking into new processes and techniques and found the forum of others making their living in their shop or at least being the best in their field if it's not full time. I don't make knives as of yet, but I want to learn the market to see if there might be products to develop in concert with people of your talent. I have some ideas that might translate to the knife world fairly well.

Here's a pic of the bike stuff I used to make. The philosophy was to make cool looking products that function well, and they will come. It seemed to work for the bike stuff, and works for the rings too. I'm dabbling in high end pens as well, but it's hard to compete with rings as far as being a steady and profitable market.
gears.jpg
 
That's some nice work!

It's sort of funny how folks have different experiences doing the same thing.
Like I said, I heeded the advice of the Balax guidelines and went with roll taps in HSS with Black oxide. They recommend against carbide, TiN coating, etc. for Ti.
We're doing many thousands of 2-56 holes right now and haven't had any troubles. Haven't broken a tap, though they do wear out. Not much creaking and popping either (of course we're using that smelly Molly tapping lube).
 
Great looking stuff on your website Mr. Boone. Interesting stuff for sure. I also dropped you a email (hope that was not a problem).
 
Thanks guys. I know that titanium nitride doesn't work so well for machining titanium but I haden't heard about roll taps. Very cool. I bet the fine threads is what makes that work. As taps get bigger, there are a lot bigger forces on the tap.

I made a pen from titanium where I killed the tap (m11 x 1) on the first hole! I was even going pretty slow. I redesigned the part where I could use my usual 1/2" carbide drill that's always in the lathe and use a thread mill as a lathe internal threading tool to cut the threads on the inside. It worked well. The threads end up being something like a 4 start thread with an OD of something like .534". As long as I'm making both the male and female parts, the thread size doesn't matter. :)

Here's the pen.
athenaopen.jpg
 
Yeah, my experience tapping Ti is with smaller holes. No doubt that makes a big difference.

Is that pen Timascus?
 
I was looking for a Tapmatic for some time. I recently found a similar Procunier tapping head although I haven't set it up for use yet. Anyone have experience with Procunier tapping heads? Tips?
 
That is the sweetest looking crankset I have ever seen boone! Wow ! Nice Stuff. The wife loves the chainring necklaces :thumbup: Do you have a machining center with a 4th axis or does your lathe have live tooling to create the twist ? Or is it just as it appears , a twist :) :confused: I have done some thread milling but only on a vertical machining center. I found it always worked best by starting a the btm. of the hole and milling out to avoid milling into a "pile" of chips. I don't think thread mills would work to well in the tapmatic though ;) Wow , finally back to topic :) Sorry billinghm . I have wondered about the procunier tapping heads for quite some time too J. I remember years ago seeing one at a small shop I worked at,it always sat in the cabinet with the tapmatic head and it seemed like all the guys that were running the drillpresses had the tapmatic set-up. I can't ever remember seeing it being used. But I've always wondered,I have seen them offered for sale used more often than the tapmatic heads , maybe there is a reason ?? Tapmatic seems to be the "lead dog" but maybe someone will chime in with good words for the procunier.
 
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