• Thanks for visiting The Penturners Forum today.

    There are many features and resources that currently you are unable to see or access, either because you're not yet registered, or if you're already registered, because you're not logged in.

    To gain full access to the forum, please log in or register now. Registration is completely free, it only takes a few seconds, and you can join our well established community of like-minded pen makers.

Making a die to match a tap?

mChavez

Full Member
Joined
Nov 11, 2024
Posts
20
Location
Scotland
First Name
R
Thank you Phil.

Well, the tap seller told me that they don't have the tap in stock and it will need to be made to order which will take an unknown amount of time, so I cancelled.
A bit deflating, as I suspect that the home-made hack would have actually worked. If not out of the box, then after a light kiss over the male threads with a tri-square file.

I completely agree with the reasons against making such a "die" from theoretical standpoint, but I strongly suspect that in a real-life application the fact that you're cutting the threads by hand already introduces such wild variance that the parts will simply fit.

For example, take the old-fashioned improvised tap & die from a nut & bolt. You put a nut onto a bolt, drill 3 holes through the threads, grind the tip of the bolt and Bob's your uncle. Theoretically, this set-up should not work (improvised "tap" makes a nut that's too small & "die" makes a bolt that's too big) but in practice they just work out fine.

Anyway, an experiment for another day I'm afraid.
 
Top