I hate cheap tools... But unfortunately I seemed to have collected quite a few over the years:( A wrong I am slowly correcting:)
The icing on the cake for me yesterday was when I needed to put an M12 thread onto the end if a mild steel rod and tap an M12 hole in some stainless.
Now, my choice of weaponry yesterday was this... Goliath M12 tap, a cheap Chinese M12 tap, Starrett tap wrench and a cheap Chinese M12 die plus holder.
I picked up the Chinese M12 tap and Starrett holder to attack the stainless... It was a pig to start and didn't clear the chips well (but at least the Starrett gripped the tap!), so with a slight blue tinge to the air I swapped the tap for the Goliath and the second half of the thread was nice to do - good tools, good job.
Onto the mild steel. By comparison I thought this would be easy as the mild steel is soft... NO. My OD was 11.80mm but all the die would do is roll the edge of the bar an wouldn't bite. A quick check to see if I had the die in the right way... Yes. I shaved the OD to 11.50, still no luck but achieved 2 or 3 more rolled edges.
Thing is the die has only been used once before and looks to be in good condition, but it clearly isn't!
In the end I decided to grind a bit of HSS and try a single point thread on the lathe, but by this time the air was definitely blue and I thought I should wait for another day before trying!
Crap tools just make life hard! I wonder I this wisdom comes from age or a simple depletion of ones patience reservoir...
Thx
Jon
The icing on the cake for me yesterday was when I needed to put an M12 thread onto the end if a mild steel rod and tap an M12 hole in some stainless.
Now, my choice of weaponry yesterday was this... Goliath M12 tap, a cheap Chinese M12 tap, Starrett tap wrench and a cheap Chinese M12 die plus holder.
I picked up the Chinese M12 tap and Starrett holder to attack the stainless... It was a pig to start and didn't clear the chips well (but at least the Starrett gripped the tap!), so with a slight blue tinge to the air I swapped the tap for the Goliath and the second half of the thread was nice to do - good tools, good job.
Onto the mild steel. By comparison I thought this would be easy as the mild steel is soft... NO. My OD was 11.80mm but all the die would do is roll the edge of the bar an wouldn't bite. A quick check to see if I had the die in the right way... Yes. I shaved the OD to 11.50, still no luck but achieved 2 or 3 more rolled edges.
Thing is the die has only been used once before and looks to be in good condition, but it clearly isn't!
In the end I decided to grind a bit of HSS and try a single point thread on the lathe, but by this time the air was definitely blue and I thought I should wait for another day before trying!
Crap tools just make life hard! I wonder I this wisdom comes from age or a simple depletion of ones patience reservoir...
Thx
Jon
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