Tapping heads

[Firstgear]

Do you use a tapping head when threading holes either on drill press or mill? If so, what kind/size do you have? Any comments on the good, the bad and the ugly of it?

 

[pstemari]

I have two smallest Procuiner heads from eBay. They work nicely. I tried a Tapmatic previously, but it was no good.

Generally I think the Procuiner mechanism with the cone clutch is best for manual work. You can easily feather the amount of torque applied. The Tapmatics have a dog clutch, which you can't feather: it's either engaged or not, no in between.

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[benmychree]

No inbetween, and the tap is broken! I have an Ettco Emerick, it too has a cone clutch and works very nicely.

 

[Hawkeye]

I have an old Procunier. Goes up to 1/4". Very good action. If the resistance gets too high, the clutch slips. No broken taps, unless you force it.

 

[PT Doc]

I have a Procunier 3 series. Came with about 10 tap collets and 2 wrenches and bar to stabilize against drill press column. Super nice and easy to use.

 

[mmcmdl]

I sold my Procuniers on here I believe and kept my 2 Encos . I haven't used them in 30 years so I can't comment .

 

[Firstgear]

I sold my Procuniers on here I believe and kept my 2 Encos . I haven't used them in 30 years so I can't comment .

I have to ask, when you tap what/how do you tap? By hand? By mill? ???

I realized the other day that tapping by hand while possible didn’t give as good as results than when I had something that was perpendicular to workpiece and inline with the drilled hole.

 

[matthewsx]

I have a Procunier 3 that was given to me. I thought it was an antique monster but after doing some research I think I need an MT3 drill press to install it on.

John

 

[darkzero]

I've got a Tapamatic 30 tc/dc. I've hear some people say they like Procunier better, never used one before so no idea why. I bought the Tapmatic when I had to tap 500+ blind holes, worked great. Haven't used it since. I normally tap in the mill by power tapping in a chuck or by hand with a follower.

 

[SamI]

I’ve just bought an M2-M7 yapping head from machine-tapping.co.uk. They’re a British company so don’t know if you’ll get them over your way. First impressions are its a little rough and ready but it works a charm.

My only real complaint with it is that the clutch seems to be too tight. Not sure if they break in. I was tapping M6 holes in aluminium on the lowest setting which doesn’t seem right to me.

I did break one tap but that was taking a guess and having the clutch set too tight. Since then I’ve tapped 40 M4 holes and I’ve got a job on next week tapping 80 M2.5 holes. I think it was well worth the money! I’m not sure I’d use it if only doing a small number of holes though. It is a bit of faff to set up initially.