Why should I use thread forming taps?
Thread forming taps produce threads by displacing the material rather than cutting and removing the material to form the thread. This essentially cold-forms the thread, producing a strong thread. Another benefit of thread forming taps is that they do not produce chips like a cutting tap would. Forming taps are known to also provide extended tool life due to the fact that there is no cutting action, there are not sharp edges to dull. They also stronger taps by nature because there are no flutes. Larger sizes of forming taps have what are called lube-grooves, to allow some clearance for lubricant and enhance the performance of the taps. These lobes are visibly if you look at the tip of the tap. You will notice that the forming rings on the tap are not perfectly round, but have lobes.
What materials should I use them on?
Any material that produces a stringy chip is a good candidate for thread forming. They are most commonly used on aluminum, brass and other non-ferrous metals, however the can be used on certain grades of steel and stainless steel. Most ductile materials producing stringy chips are great for forming.
How should I use thread forming (roll) taps?
Thread forming taps require different application parameters than standard cutting taps. Here is a link to our recommended speeds, feeds and hole sizes for your thread forming operation.
http://www.kodiakcuttingtools.com/ThreadFormingTaps.html
End Mill Selection has Evolved and Materials Have Improved
It used to be that carbide end mills were much less prevalent than they are today. Some time ago high speed steel and cobalt tools were much more widely used and less expensive. As time has gone on carbide tools have become more competitively priced and have become the preferred end mill by many machinists. The advantages of carbide endmills are numerous. They are much more rigid and produce tighter tolerances for machining precision parts. Carbide is also much more wear resistant. However, although carbide is tough and wear resistant, it can also be brittle. For this reason many older machine setups that are not as rigid prefer to still run high speed steel and cobalt tools for the additional forgiveness they provide.
At Kodiak cutting tools our solid carbide endmills are made from ultra-micrograin carbide. This means that the structure of the molecules in the carbide are smaller and more consistent than and lesser grades of carbide. This grain structure allows the carbide to wear in a more even pattern and provide better tool life. Other tools, such as carbide burs which are not as precise, may be manufactured with a carbide that has a larger grain size. Some inferior manufacturers of carbide end mills use a lesser grade carbide with a larger grain structure, which makes the tools less expensive, but it also makes them less durable and more difficult to grind to exacting tolerances. That is why, although our tools might cost slightly more, in the long run better quality will save you money and increase your productivity through longer tool life and precision performance.
Did you know that all of are taps are designed to be used under power?
Sometimes if is a little confusing, because standard straight flute threading taps are often referred to as hand taps, that they are also used in machine applications. There are accessories available for using these taps by hand, such as tap handles, tap wrenches and tapping alignment tools, but the standard straight flute taps can also be use for smaller run machine tapping. All of our standard straight flute taps are made from premium grade M-2 high speed steel material, to provide maximum tool life. For additional tool life you can also consider a coating such as TiN or a treatment such as Steam Oxide or Nitride & Steam Oxide.
Take a look at our tap selection here: http://www.kodiakcuttingtools.com/viewcategory/taps
How do you run a double-lead tap?
As you probably already know, a double-lead tap traverses twice the distance per rotation as a standard tap would. The question of how to run them comes up from time to time, so we thought this would be a good entry for the technical section of our speeds and feeds blog.
The feed rate will be twice that of a regular tap, so to compensate, cut the RPM that you are running at to about 1/2 of what you would run a single lead tap at.
http://www.kodiakcuttingtools.com/viewproducts/double-lead-taps
Save Time and Money
One thing that some customers may not notice, is that we are now offering a 5 percent discount on all of your purchases simply set up an account. This will not only allow you to receive the discount, but it will also save you time when making future purchases. This will allow you to save your shipping address and also create a list of favorite items for fast repeat ordering. Do not worry, we will not bombard you with emails after you sign up. That is not our style. We do want to save you time and money on your cutting tool purchases though. So please take a minute to sign up for the discount and let us know if there are other ways you think that we could make our website easier for you to use.
A New Line of Communication
We are pleased to be able to extend to our customers this new line of communication. This platform will allow us to keep you up-to-date with what we have going on here at Kodiak and let you know when we have changes or new offers that we are sure you would like to hear about. Often times other forms of communication may go unnoticed, but hopefully you will check back here once in a while to see what is new. We always enjoy hearing from our customers, even when it is not good news. This gives us a chance to correct our course and make it easier for you to do business with us. We look forward to your comments and feedback to the post that we offer here.