On Tue, 2 Nov 2010 05:55:56 -0700 (PDT), rangerssuck
wrote:

On Nov 2, 7:28*am, Karl Townsend
wrote:
On Mon, 1 Nov 2010 21:40:16 -0700, "Bob La Londe"

wrote:

"Bob Engelhardt" wrote in message
...
rangerssuck wrote:
One of these:http://www.use-enco.com/CGI/INSRIT...

"The Enco Model Number that you entered could not be located."

Yeah, but I suspect he was pointing me towards a hand tapping
machine/fixture. *Basically looks like a c-clamp on a pedestal. *Hmmm.... *I
think I just figured out how to make one.

You might make mine. Take a T handle tap wrench and remove the cross
bar. Find a 3/8 socket that just quite won't fit on the top of the tap
wrench and press it on. IIRC, it was 12MM on mine. Then use a speed
wrench for your new tap handle. This lets you hold the tap from moving
side to side *way out and the speed wrench lets you go back and forth
really fast. *I must have done 50 6-32s just this week in AL.

I use the speed wrench tap handle for nearly all my hand tapping.

Karl

That's good, but the machine has some very nice features. It is
counterbalanced, so you don't have a lot of external forces pushing on
the tap, and you have a very good feel for your progress. It also
keeps the work from spinning without holding it so tightly as to
prevent the tap from aligning with the hole.

You could come pretty close to this by holding a tap in a drill press,
hanging a weight on the handle to make the quill pretty close to
balanced, and holding the work loosely in a vise or between blocks
bolted to the table. You could fashion a long handle that clamps to
the chuck.

That would be very close to this machine, and would probably work
great.

yea, I also have tap wrenches with a guide rod going up from the
handles. Drill a hole in the press or mill. Put this in the chuck
loosely to tap. works a treat.

I don't like breaking taps

karl