Archived from the Tools In Action forum (Hand Tools). This thread is read-only.
I have used a couple taps before, but other people told me specifically what to get. I want to be a big boy now and do it all by myself. Heck, it’s about time, in less than a couple years i’ll be 70…
What i have before me at present is a stud. Well, i need to handle actually three or four. Maybe all eight. When my dog’s anchored lead wrapped around an aluminum yard bench and she took off, a couple legs were ripped off the bench due to the studs being torn out of the frame. Only the highest quality…
The stud is an 8 x 1.25, 3 cm long. How do i use a chart to select what drill size i should use to bore the hole out and to select a proper tap (at this point in time i think i have four taps and they are all Imperial). Then is the question of the sizing of the replacement studs. Logically dependent upon the tap, so i presume i simply take the written dimensions of the tap and get a tap that is identical, but i have fallen victim to my presumptions before.
Is there a resource complimentary to “Tap and Die for Dummies” that anyone could recommend? I know this ain’t rocket science (Boeing would probably hire me), but i sure would appreciate a push in the right direction-
Thank you very much for your knowledge and help!
Best Regards,
-Bruce
Is there ANYBODY out there? (Just nod if you can hear me, is there anyone at all???)
LOL, yes there are people here but not sure how many know about the tap & Die. I know some to get by but not much.
Here is a chart:
I am mostly familiar with Metric, and I know drill size 2.5mm for M3, 2.9mm for M3.5, 3.3mm (3.2mm?) for M4, 4.2mm for M5, 5mm for M6 and 6.8mm for M8, 8.5mm for M10 and 10.2mm for M12, there are other size that are rarely used like M7, M9 and M11, but the ones that are very common are M4, M5 and M6.
There are some options for you to make the job easier if you mix up the sizes for the drill bit and the tap, one is called drill and tap and here is an example
You can find this in HSS-Co quality as well but I would not recommend them to you as HSS-Co is more harder but easy to break if you are not familiar with them. You can also find them in Imperial sizes
These are from DeWALT (both Imperial and Metric) and other sizes in Imperial are available, too.
The second option is Snappy Drills and Snappy Taps, so what Snappy does is to make the taps separately and the drills separately but three sizes of drill bits in one bit kind of like a step drill bit. Here are some photos, but these are only available in Metric.
Snappy Tap M6
And here is the photo for the drill bit which is for M4-M6-M10 and there is another version for M3.5-M5-M8
I would recommend the snappy ones more as you drill it first with high speed to do it faster and then you tap it with much lower speed to not break the tap.