Tapping head for 000-120 tap

Hello everyone,

New to the forum but I’ve surfed a little over the years. I owned a large fab shop for years but I’m out of that now and purchased some older machines I’m trying to teach myself to use so I’ll be quite active here now. I’m a really fast learner but please excuse my potential ignorance here in the beginning.

My question is about a tapping head. I purchased an old Hardinge AHC and a DV-59 for a project I’m trying to start up. I’ll be mass producing small titanium body jewelry for a friend and I need to tap 000-120 and M1.2 threads in the end of the posts. I will be running a tapping head in both machines because the AHC will turn, drill, tap, and part off so the other end of the piece will be run on the DV-59.

Problem is I didn’t really research capacities of tapping heads before I got this far. Ive searched specs on every tapping head I find used until I turned blue and I never found anything that went down to 000. The closest thing I found was a tapmatic N/C-R00 and it only goes down to M1 which is so close but out of spec for me. I’m hoping someone here can tell me about a tapping head I can search for or to go with where I’m at now which is just try the tapmatic N/C-R00 and see what happens.

I’m asking for advise because I’m trying to hunt down used tapping heads at first to get the project off the ground. Once this is up and running smoothly I can probably justify a nice CNC Swiss machine to take over with fancy new tooling.

If anyone has some input please let me know. I really appreciate anything at all that can help get this up and running already. Thanks in advance!

AdamP said:

I’m asking for advise because I’m trying to hunt down used tapping heads at first to get the project off the ground. Once this is up and running smoothly I can probably justify a nice CNC Swiss machine to take over with fancy new tooling.

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Well.. here's a lesson from really, really OLD "history", then.

Precis is "you have it backwards". You do NOT DIY this at all, certainly not on salvaged machinery and tooling.

Here's a back-story. Day Job had pioneered the hearing aid. They got smaller, year-on-year.
Tiny screws were used as "switches" to tailor the audio response curves to fit each individual's measured hearing loss curve. Those got smaller year-on-year as well.

By the end of the 1950's they had been mass-producing #0-80 and #00-90 screws in the tens of thousands a year, using taps and geometric die heads made in-house. Material was brass or Alpaca metal, often Gold plated.

For a new instrument around 1959 or 1960, Engineering wanted a #000-123 or 124. memory fades, but ISTR is "non standard" or at least uncommon. Also a switch to stainless steel to avoid need of Gold plating.

We hit the wall with the lovingly hand-tuned "iron bearing" SB nines used for production and ordered a custom-built Hardinge, our first. IIRC I ran it at 5000-5500 RPM, but it was supposedly capable of as much as 8,000 RPM.

Our scrap rate was not fun. Constant fiddling with setup and die head modification ensued.

A new VP of Manufactuing arrived, made no fuss, sent the drawings off to Vallorbs Jewelry Company in Switzerland.

In a very short time, we had near-as-dammit perfect stainless screws to our specs, minimum batch size 10,000 pieces. About a 4 to 6 month supply, IIRC. And which took up hardly any space, of course!

And.. at a finished-goods cost that was right around the same as our scrap rate for time and materials had been costing us for DIY.

To the mechanical watch trade, this is was just "ordinary" mass-production work.

And that was over fifty years ago. "Swiss" machines. Not CNC.

You won't likely be able to duplicate that in Titanium with anything less than a serious investment in BRAND NEW equipment and tooling.

Even then, it will have a steep "learning curve", high initial scrap rate.. and still end up years and tears behind the folks with more than a hundred year head-start and waaay higher volumes, the whole time of it.

Buying what you need from them, adding YOUR value in some other place - even if only packaging - will be less pain.

Otherwise? You can DOO this.. but not in what I'd call "mass production".. and the per-unit cost will be ... "high"?

#000-sense worth

OOO ?

Heck I'd mistake those for nose hairs...

My grubby fingers are too big for changing inserts half the time.

digger doug said:

OOO ?

Heck I'd mistake those for nose hairs...

My grubby fingers are too big for changing inserts half the time.

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We had B&L Microscopes all over the plant, benches and machines. 20 power binocular vision, and 40 power mono.

Brother machines are the tapping kings since 1985. I've seen 0000-160 done with tap held solid. I have clients that do M1.2 x .25 all day long in Titanium, roll tap held solid. Brother tapping is "Synchronized Tapping" which is more accurate than "rigid tapping" due to their spindle motor design and other hardware/software features. Some long time clients have told me Brother used to tap soap at tool shows before my time to show how the machines don't pull or push on the threads.

A quick search suggests that all taps under #6 or M3 all have the same size shank, so the tapping head you describe should hold the tap just fine.

This job is doable. I have run some 000-120 Threads. I might be able to help. I think you are talking about a reversible tapping head like this;




If that is true, it's going to be a Bear. That is a .025" hole you are going to be lining up. DISCLAIMER I have never tried it with a "Tapping head". but in my experience Tapping heads have more play in them, than you have Minor diameter. Not saying it can't be done!! But were it me, I would rethink it. 000-120 everything needs to be pretty well perfect. Runout is a Murderer on this, Perp. is too. I'm assuming the Lathe doesn't have a CNC control, and that is why you are thinking "Tapping head". That belt drive has a tough time stopping and reversing fast too. (One of the most money making machines in the shop BTW)

This is what I would do, I would get a quote on an Omniturn retrofit, very simple to use and understand. They are not some backyard bargain thing with an Atari Mother board and speaker wires hanging out the back. They are basically built to retrofit to Hardinge lathes. When you get the quote specify exactly what you need to do. We have one that supports rigid tap and one that doesn't.

Balax makes a Roll Tap that size, assuming we are talking 4V (as it's Medical, or 4V ELI) it's tough to Tap anyway, so Roll it. If you go the Tapmatic route please post back, and let us know the results, video is good.

R

BROTHERFRANK said:

Brother machines are the tapping kings since 1985. I've seen 0000-160 done with tap held solid. I have clients that do M1.2 x .25 all day long in Titanium, roll tap held solid. Brother tapping is "Synchronized Tapping" which is more accurate than "rigid tapping" due to their spindle motor design and other hardware/software features. Some long time clients have told me Brother used to tap soap at tool shows before my time to show how the machines don't pull or push on the threads.

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Awesome! More than half a century of gap bridged in a few PM posts.

The other thing is.... that once down to where the mass of even very costly "noble" metals is so low, yah have to ask whether it still makes any sense to still USE threaded fasteners at all.

More than half those screws we made were to cover ones lost by the poor human-fingered Audiologist fitting the hearing aids to the client. And they were folk with lots of practice and the right tools and everything, too.

How much of that skill and preparation might apply - or not - to a customer for body-art, and in their typical environment?

Non-allergenic GLUE might make more sense?

I have an unused NOS Tapmatic model 100A tapping head complete with 5/8" shank for a Hardinge turret, original pair of wrenches, torque rod and two collets. It is rated #0000 to #2. One collet is the standard .141" for USA small taps. The other collet is much smaller, around .06" and probably for watchmaker taps, but I don't know for sure. It is a releasing and automatic reversing head. Price $200 including USA shipping.

I bought this tiny head along with new 30TC/DC and 50X heads around 1980. I used the two bigger heads for many holes, but never had a need for the little one.

Larry

I didn't know they made them that small. If you use this one, please let us know how well it works.

L Vanice said:

I have an unused NOS Tapmatic model 100A tapping head complete with 5/8" shank for a Hardinge turret, original pair of wrenches, torque rod and two collets. It is rated #0000 to #2. One collet is the standard .141" for USA small taps. The other collet is much smaller, around .06" and probably for watchmaker taps, but I don't know for sure. It is a releasing and automatic reversing head. Price $200 including USA shipping.

I bought this tiny head along with new 30TC/DC and 50X heads around 1980. I used the two bigger heads for many holes, but never had a need for the little one.

Larry

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Sweet tapping head, but given the near forty year old lubricants in it, might want to send it to Tapmatic for a cleaning and rebuild (if they do that), perhaps even speccing a lighter oil or grease to suit the teeny tiny taps. Low stiction will help save small taps (at least, so I believe).

Milland said:

Sweet tapping head, but given the near forty year old lubricants in it, might want to send it to Tapmatic for a cleaning and rebuild (if they do that), perhaps even speccing a lighter oil or grease to suit the teeny tiny taps. Low stiction will help save small taps (at least, so I believe).

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Seconded.

Even Kluber's best high-priced butter only gets rated 10-12 years - even if it "might" be still OK at twice that.

More ordinary greases aren't very predictable much above half that longevity, especially if not turned-over a couple of times a year as with fine wines. Or Reliance' recommendation for bearings in their motors when in shelf storage.

This is small thread, but it isn’t that small. I design a lot of parts that use these size threads, but I have only done the threads by hand with a guide or on a cnc. You looking to go right between my experience.

I would give that little tapping head a try. A tension/compress tapping setup could would work too with a good process.

My advice is to develop your process around a form tap. If you figure out a good process, it is just much more stable and the taps are so much stronger at this size than a cutting tap.

Make sure you are buying stock from a reputable source. Cheap titanium can be great to work with one month and terrible the next. You notice material lot variation when you run features like this.

If you really need to make on spec theads, you really need to be thinking about your hole making process. Hole size accuracy is critical and more so with your nice roll tap. Find a good drill that works for you, and if you are making more than a few, there should be no reamers involved.

How deep are you drilling? Ugh, ithe tapping on this job will be easy, it’s the hole drilling that is probably going to suck.

If you can run the threads loose, go for it, it will make you life much easier.

Seriously, look for a little cnc gang lathe like an omniturn if you are really running production.