On 2011-05-11, Bob La Londe wrote:
My new elcheapo tapping head arrived yesterday. As is often the case
with Chinese tools the instructions appeared to be written by somebody
who was afraid to use much paper and suffered from learning English
recently as a second language from somebody who spoke English as a
second language.

Common, unfortunately.

However, I muddled through and determined that the "torque" settings
they referred to function as a friction slip clutch much like the drag
on a fishing reel. My new spiral flute taps to go with it have not
arrived yet, but I experimented anyway. Some MDF seemed like a suitable
test subject since all I have laying around are hand taps. It worked
pretty good. I set it for light torque, and just lifted the head to
reverse and clear chips when it slipped. It worked. Well, it worked
after I tightened up the collet closer, and it quit spinning around the
tap. LOL.

Yes -- if they have done a clone of the Jacobs tap chuck, there
are two things to tighten.

First -- the pair of plates which clamp down on the square end
of the tap to prevent spinning.

Second -- the RubberFlex collet to hold it concentric and
parallel to the axis.

Botb need to be tightened. with the RubberFlex only loosely
tightened at first, then the clamp plates, then a firm tightening of the
RubberFlex collet to keep the pull from working the tap out of the
collet.

After doing 8 holes or so in the sample piece of MDF I got ballsy. I
broke out a scrap piece of aluminum and drilled some holes. Stop that!
I can see you cringing. I left the torque setting moderately light
and tapped the aluminum the same way I tapped the MDF. When the chips
packed up it would slip the clutch. I just lifted the head to reverse
and blew the chips out.

O.K. With the clutch set loose enough, that could work -- but
remember that the clutch is designed only to tell you when the taps are
getting dull, so you may be wearing them out more quickly doing this.

You don't have any spiral point (gun) taps on hand? I tend to
prefer those even for hand tapping.

No its not the ideal way to tap a work piece, but it allowed me to play
with my new toy, and its still a lot faster than hand tapping. (lots of
mineral oil on the aluminum)

Understood -- got to play.

Its a lot better than I expected at a cost of only a yard and a half
brand new including freight.

This is the second time you have mentioned "a yard and a half"
as a price. Please -- what does that translate into? Given the new
price of the TapMatic heads, I would guess that this may be $150.00, not
$15.00 or $1.50. :-)

Enjoy,
DoN.

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