Admitting My Mistakes

Author: Kip Hanson

Published May 29, 2018 - 10:15am Cutting Tool Engineering Magazine

I received an email from a reader letting me know that he disagreed with my recent article on tapping versus thread milling. In it, I stated, “There’s little chance of successfully thread milling metals much above 45 HRC. And if you’re going to try to tap them, be prepared to duck the flying shrapnel when the tap explodes!”

We all make mistakes. So when Tom Fares, president of TNT Custom Equipment in Stow, Ohio, called me out on that section of the article, saying that he routinely taps holes in 45 HRC steel alloy and thread mills into “the low 60s,” I listened to what he had to say.

Fares uses an OSG EXOPRO S-XPF oil tap to form M30 × 3.5 threads in a proprietary alloy similar to 1050 steel but heat-treated to 45 HRC. He said he tried “every M30 forming tap I could find,” but this was the only one his Hurco VMX-84 50-taper belt-driven vertical machining center could actually turn without stalling the spindle.

He has nothing but good to say about the OSG oil tap, citing another example of a long-running job where he taps M30 holes in A514 grade 50 plate (a high-strength structural steel). At 250 rpm, the OSG averages up to 9,000 holes through 1.575" thick material compared with 1,750 holes per tap with “the other brand.” That spindle speed is faster than Fares likes, and he thinks tool life would be even better by slowing things down, but he needs to run at that rpm to keep the spindle from stalling.

He also breaks the rules somewhat by using a water soluble, semisynthetic cutting fluid with a chlorinated lube additive. (Speaking for myself, I’d use a sulfur-based oil or squirt a little tapping wax into the hole.) “I know they say water soluble coolant isn’t recommended for form tapping, but it works for me,” said Fares.

On the thread-milling side, he cuts 62 HRC flame-hardened 1045 and 52100 steels for prototypes and fixturing, although this is admittedly “one-off stuff, but it can be done.”

Don’t get me wrong. I’ve tapped thousands of holes over the years. Cut taps, roll taps, spiral, plug and bottoming taps—I’ve used them all in everything from nickel-based superalloys to Teflon. And while thread milling wasn’t possible when I started in the trades, I did my fair share of that as well in later years.

In my defense, Fares is using a coolant-through-the-tool tap. This is one of those “newer” cutting tool technologies that makes a huge difference in many applications but especially when you’re pushing the limits as TNT Custom Equipment does. The tap is also advertised to reduce torque by up to 50 percent compared with competing brands, which is surely another factor in Fares’ success.

Anyway, my bad. My wife is enthusiastic about pointing out my mistakes, but I don’t often hear it from my readers. So thank you for your email, Tom, and for sharing the details with me. That’s the wonderful thing about manufacturing: There are always new things to learn.

You can view the original article by clicking here

EXOTAP® VCX Series

Added to List 10051:

• Fractional Sizes (10 edp's)
• Large diameters from 9/16" through 1"

Added to List 11051:

• Metric Sizes (12 edp's)
• Large Diameters from M14 through M24

EXOTAP® A-TAP® Series

 NEW EDPs Have been added to the following List #'s:

Current Situation

David Whitmire, OSG district manager, has been covering a sales territory in Texas and Oklahoma for 9 years. He has witnessed both the best and worst days of the energy industry. Since the price of oil per barrel has recently reached record lows, our economy and oil field manufacturers have been severely affected. An increasing number of layoffs and downsizing at companies has occurred in the area. During this down time, some oil field manufacturers started to do their homework by reconsidering their machining processes as an avenue to cut costs. This has opened up some new opportunities for OSG in David’s territory.

One of David’s customers is a large pump housing manufacturer in the oil field industry. During the industry slowdown, the company wanted to be proactive, so they invited OSG and a local distributor to host a tap trouble shooting seminar. During the seminar, David showed them the OSG EXOTAP® A-Tap® and EXOPRO® Mega Muscle® drill videos. These videos drew a lot of attention as they showed A-Tap® and Mega Muscle® products surpassing speeds and feeds of competitors’ tools. This company produces 50 to 60 parts after spending over 625 hours machining per month. David decided to perform tool testing with his local distributor to help the company improve productivity and cut costs.

Tool Testing/Solutions

Material: 4140 Modified Alloy Steel

Results

Test 1 demonstrated a significant advantage of the A-Tap®. Even if it ran at the same speeds and feeds with the competitor’s tap, the A-Tap® was able to produce 25% to 40% more pump housings and to reduce costs by $22 per tool versus the competitor’s tap.

Tests 2, 3, 4 and 5 showed that OSG’s taps and drills ran at faster speeds than the competitors’ tools, and the A-Tap®, VXL Tap and Mega Muscle® products were able to reduce the cycle time by 23 minutes. In addition, the A-Tap® and Mega Muscle® machined 5 times more parts than the competitors’ tools did.

Tests 6 and 7 have not been completed, but David is confident that the WDO® drills and PXD drills will reduce the cycle times even more. By using OSG’s taps and drills in their operation, David predicts that the company will be able to reduce at least 21 hours of machining time per month!

For any manufacturer, time is money, and an increasing number of companies are looking for ways to improve efficiency in their manufacturing process. In order to support such demand, OSG improved its popular tap series, the EXOTAP VA-3®.  The EXOTAP VA-3® already excelled in both stainless and carbon steels, but now you can tap at even faster speeds with our newly expanded VA-3® offerings!

What makes it possible to tap faster is the new VA-3® coolant-through capability. It prevents overheating and improves chip removal rates. As a result, you can achieve faster cutting speeds and smoother chip evacuation! In addition to the coolant-through capability, the new VA-3 taps offer DIN overall length for longer reach applications. The EXOTAP VA-3® series has become even more versatile to address your challenging needs.

In addition to these new features, the VA-3® taps feature optimized geometry specifically designed for stainless and carbon steels. OSG’s patented V coating provides excellent wear resistance and extended tool life. If cost savings and efficiency are in your To-Improve-List, give OSG’s EXOTAP VA-3® taps a try!

Spiral Flute      

List 307 - Inch  

List 347 - Metric  

Spiral Point

List 306 - Inch 

List 346 - Metric 

When tapping, drilling, and milling heat resistant super alloys like Inconel 718, you need tools that can take the heat. OSG provides a total solution tooling trifecta for these tough machining applications.  With the rigid substrates, tailored geometries, and advanced coatings on our EXOPRO^® WHR-Ni Taps, EXOPRO^® WHO-Ni Drills, and EXOPRO^® UVX-Ni End Mills, you can tap, drill, and mill without the worry of rapid wear or extreme breakage.

Check out these tools at work:

David Aly, Aerospace Specialist

Just because you’ve tried one forming tap, doesn’t mean you’ve tried them all. We had the recent opportunity to prove that OSG forming taps are better than the rest.

As a supplier of custom fabricated metal products and machinery, one of our customers approached us wanting to get better chip control during their tapping operation. Located in Winona, Mississippi, they have a 92,500 square foot manufacturing facility for producing fuel tanks, hydraulic tanks and custom designed machining fixtures.

After discussing the customer’s chip control needs, I recommended OSG’s EXOTAP® NRT® Forming Tap, a more stable, thread rolling tap that makes threads by compressing the work material without creating chips. Because no chip is produced, breakage due to chip packing and bird nesting is eliminated.

The EXOTAP® NRT®  also has significantly reduced friction resistance because of its special threading design and surface treatment. Made from VC-10 Powdered Metal High Speed Steel, this forming tap has a longer tool life when tapping difficult to machine materials like carbon steels, alloy steels, stainless steels and aluminum alloy.

Tap heat resistant super alloys like Inconel 718 without the risk of breakage using OSG’s EXOPRO^® WHR-Ni Taps. The unique rake angle combined with OSG’s powdered metal substrate improves cutting edge rigidity, while the addition of OSG’s proprietary HR coating offers superior wear resistance for significantly longer tool life.

The EXOPRO^® XPF Taps are a premium high performance form tap capable of tapping materials up to 40 HRC.

This fluteless tap provides increased durability due to the lack of chips it produces.  It also generates 40-50% less torque than the competition, offering an extended tool life at much higher speeds.

With coolant and non-coolant through options available, the EXOPRO^® XPF Tap is ideal for Aluminum Alloy, Cast Aluminum, Carbon Steels, Alloy Steel, Die Steel, Stainless Steel and Hardened Steel up to 40 HRC.