"Jeff Wisnia" wrote:
Tim Wescott wrote:

Bernd

Presumably if you don't know that taps are made of HSS or harder there's
a good chance you also don't know how to manage them to keep them from
jamming and breaking -- or how to feel a jam starting and keep it from
happening.


Aw, 'cmon, it's three days before Xmas*, be don't be such a grinch.
Maybe he sneezed at the wrong time or sumpin.

Can you honestly say you've never broken a tap? Isn't that how we all
learned how to avoid busting them?

Hehe, I just broke one last week, a 6-32. I have 16 little holes to tap
radially in some short lenghts of 3/8" all thread (for set screws), and
since it takes a longer time to do the "twist-in, twist-out", I decided that
I would do it like the tapping machines do it, and do it in one fell swoop.
This way I would save a lot of time.

Of course, I don't have a tapping machine, and at the time I didn't even
have a proper handle (I was using an old set of Vise-Grips).

Guess what - I broke a tap!

I bought a proper handle and I'm doing all of my hand tapping now with the
"twist-in, twist-out" technique. At least now I know why.

Jon