taps&dies

[garrygunParticipant @garrygun]

Hi guys, i know HSS taps&dies are good and HC are ok for light duty and medium soft materials thread cleaning etc, smeone i know is selling a set of carbide taps&dies, NF and NC fairly cheap, would these be UNF and UNC and what would your views be on these? would it be wise to steer clear of them?.

Thanks Garry.

[garrygunParticipant @garrygun]

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Do you really mean a Carbide set or Carbon?

They will be UNF & UNC

[martin perman 1Participant @martinperman1]

I get all my HSS taps and dies from a gent who sells on EBay, he is local to me so I send him an email when I want something. I fetched a 9/16 UNC plug and second for £10.00 this morning, the plug is brand new and the second is in good order. HSS every time.

NC National course NF National fine.

Martin P

[TerrydParticipant @terryd72465]

Hi Garry,

In model engineering, Unified threads are pretty well obsolete unless you wish to build to American standards. Beside, the USA has officially decided to adopt metric ISO standards but confusion still arises, however at least they have allies in the other two countries still officially using Imperial measures, i.e. Burma (Myanmar) and Liberia both renowned centres of advanced engineering excellence!

They may be of use if you are refurbishing British vehicles from the 1960s and 70s when Unified threads were pretty well standard. Apart from that, I would save my money and adopt ISO standards unless the sets you have been offered are really cheap.

Regards

Terry

 

Regards

T

Edited By Terryd on 29/04/2012 21:35:48

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Just about any American model design uses UNF fasteners so they are very much in use in model engineering, last two of three engines I've made used them. So don't disregard them.

This is likely to be the case for many years to come, they may have decided to go metric but we did that years ago and BA & ME threads are still common.

J

[garrygunParticipant @garrygun]

All it had on these were carbide NC & NF they look quite a nice set, i would probably only use them occasionaly on an old car etc, think i will save my pennies and get a metric set and buy unf or unc as needed.

Thanks Garry

[neville rigg 2Participant @nevillerigg2]

Correct as regards the US going metric, I think it was agreed in the mid seventies but after living here for about 16 years I have yet to see the results of the agreement. Go into the hardware stores and there are racksof UNC,UNF but only a couple of drawers of metric.

[Ian S CParticipant @iansc]

Garry, starting out I would buy the taps and dies that I require rather than a full set, The sets that I could afford are usually rubbish, where as if you buy one or two every now and then, you can get quality, if you get a full set there will be some you never use.

I find UNF a good fine thread for general use, just a bit finer than BSF, I only use a limited range of metric theading gear. My bias is proberbly because of a supply of nuts and bolts that I started with, same goes with my use of 1/8" BSC. Ian S C

[garrygunParticipant @garrygun]

think i might just buy this set even if i use it a couple of times it will pay for itself, as you said i will just buy quality ones as required.

thanks Garry.

[Joseph RamonParticipant @josephramon28170]

It depends. If you are servicing things, then you need the taps and dies that match what you are working on.

If you are using bought in fasteners, the chooses taps and dies that you can get fasteners to match at an economic price.

If you are making parts yourself, then it dosesn't really matter what you use, as long as it suits the materials.

Most folks would have BA for small sizes, metric for large and things like workshop equipment (in the past they would have had BSW or BSF for this) and a few sizes of 'ME taps and dies, which are whitworth form but in 32 and 40 tpi (i.e. quite fine) and ideal for threading pipes and small fittings where a larger thread (e.g. metric) won't fit or is grossly out of scale.

Joey

[Raymond AndersonParticipant @raymondanderson34407]

Hi Garry,

If the taps/dies really are carbide then you would certainly have to be very careful to avoid breaking the taps, as carbide is extremely brittle far more so than HSS. in fact they would NOT be well suited to any form of hand tapping unless you were to use some sort of tapping jig to ensure that everything is rigid.

No flex with carbide i'm afraid.

Regards,

Raymond.

[Neil GreenawayParticipant @neilgreenaway71611]

hi there,one of my previous employers used a lot of tungsten carbide taps etc on exotic alloys such as high grade stainless materials,monels and inconels.they were used in machine centres normally, with feed,speed and torque control, and even then they had breakages!neil.

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