Which taps & dies

Fish30114

Fish30114

Joined
Jan 5, 2014
Messages
1,495
Folks, possibly a little off topic, but you guys around here always seem to have good advice on tools. I am wanting to get a new set of taps & dies. I recently was told that hexagonal dies are not meant for cutting new threads, only chasing/restoring existing threads--I never learned this and I have cut a lot of good functioning threads with my set of Bosch dies that are hexagonal...
One thing I would really like in the new ones are HIGHLY legible size and other designation info that won't fade over time. My Bosch taps and dies are a black oxide finish, with I don't know what king of lighter colored printing on them, but they are fading pretty quickly, and becoming unreadable--even under a magnifying lamp.

Thanks for any feedback

Regards--Don
 
Whatever you do, stay away from anything made in China. Good taps and dies cost money, end of story.

The money you save on a cheap set will quickly disappear in the extra time and frustration you spend trying to use them, only to find out that they're still not really even the right size. Not only that, but if you're cutting anything but aluminum, they'll be dull by the 4th or 5th use anyhow.
 
I bought a set from harbor freight. I am pretty sure that if you tap anything harder than cold butter...maybe cheddar cheese, the threads strip off.
 
You NEED to make sure it's HSS and not tool steel. Usually HSS will appear more shiny. Coatings are virtually pointless after not very many uses and good tapping fluid or coolant will go a lot further in helping preserve some tool life and smoother cutting/improved surface finishes. My personal opinion is to buy nice taps and dies individually as you need them if that is possible. Good sets are expensive and force you to get dies and taps you may rarely use when you could get an extra tap or die that you may actually use a lot. I for instance use a lot of 1/4-20 taps and it seems like I practically never touch 6s or 8s for some reason. I also use a few metric taps quite often but not enough of a range of them to likely justify buying a set instead of just buying a few M3x.5s

Buy from a reputable tool dealer like MSC if you want to avoid buying junk like you'd find at harbor freight or home depot. I'd also avoid taps with a billion cutting edges or weird spirals and such. They just break easier in my experience. A lot of tool talk/advertisement is hype, but american made and quality HSS does make a difference. The more meat on the tap the better in my opinion.
 
That's good intel folks, I appreciate the feedback, I definitely want to buy American made stuff--are there any brands you guys can recommend that will definitely be American if I buy?

Appreciate the help people!
 
I use Balax taps a lot and they work well. I think they are made in Illinois. As for dies, I'm not positive of the best brand to pick, because all of the ones I've gotten from MSC have worked fine. I don't use them enough to be confident of what one was my favorite.
 
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