Tap Sets

I have tap sets ( taper, plug,bottom) from 1 inch NC & NF down to the real tiny stuff. All are quality older US brands except for a few sets of the Hertels. I bought the Hertel sets from Enco during sales to fill in the missing sizes. They seem to cut as well as my other US made brands (Cleveland, Greenfield, TRW, etc). I used cheap sets when that was all I could afford as a young guy just starting out. Broke stuff and had some poor results. My first real set of tap and dies was a Craftsman brand combination inch/metric. Came in a little gray plastic case. Still have it. Now a days I would use them on non-critical things or something that might damage one of my good ones. The difference in the quality of the cut between them and say a Greenfield or Hertel is very noticeable in my opinion.

Thank you all for the responses.

The old Craftsman combo in a grey box I intend to replace are the ones I bought "slightly used" on eBay, they were more like slightly abused. Not one tap is sharp enough to dig/cut on a finger nail. Lesson learned.

Most likely whichever one I get would be a magnitude better. At this time I am only getting the 3 tap set of the sizes I anticipated on using.

Thanks again for sharing y'all's experience.

John Hasler said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_steel

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tool_steel

Click to expand...

John, Daryl,

I agree with what you guys are saying that HHS is one of many in the "tool steel" category. That's what I'm getting at.

But to say HHS is better than TOOL STEEL is not a true statement. We all know there are several grades of tool steel, including HHS, that are more superior than HHS is by itself.

Ken

Traditionally "tool steel" has referred, in common parlance, to high-carbon, low-alloy steels intended for metal cutting while "high speed steel" has referred to high-alloy steels intended for metal cutting.