Tapping Blind Holes - How do you do it?

[Busto]

Daniel..........if you use the same thickness material on a regular basis you can save time by using a shim under the material to set your depth (I use a 0.040 shim) that should raise your material to be tapped set your tap to the top of the material and set depth stop remove shim and you're ready to tap away.

Mike

 

[Nebulae]

If you can get a drill press, the best way to tap straight holes is to tap them immediately after drilling. If you don't move your part after drilling you can chuck in a pointed cone that will insert itself nicely into the hole found in the back of some taps, or in the tap handle. Either way this keeps everything 100% aligned so you only have to worry about breaking your tap.

 

[PT Doc]

I would put the tap in your drill press chuck and get the right size dowel pin for the chuck key hole and just turn the Chuck with your dowel pin inserted. Works out nice and you can feel the tap cutting or getting hung up. My jacobs 16n Chuck takes a 3/8" dowel pin or precision ground stock.