Outer Limits 4x4 Board

As the post says, which brand tap & dies are the better ones, and which one do I stay away from??

I'm looking at buying something in size around the 110pc set. What price should I be looking to pay for this.

I did have a look at the Kingchrome ones and thought they looked a bit cheap. The die holder didn't look the best quality but I could be wrong.

Cheers.

I have a couple of P&N sets....... they'd be over 50 years old
( passed on to me from Dad.... timber boxes !! )

A 135 piece Sutton set thats purely Whitworth ......
( left to me by an lawn mower repairer & family friend in his will )

A 50 piece set of tapered threads n dies from Sidchrome
( repackaged but from whom I dont know )

&

a metric and imperial set from China
( the blue boxed sets )



And I've only broken 1 tap in all the years I've owned em all.....

Yep one from the metric China set !

( my fault it broke....... )


Cant say I have a preferance over any of them, they all do a good job.

i had an old p & n set that my grandpa gave to me before he died in the wooden box along with about 100 other random taps and dies grate set but my uncle decided it was unfair so he got them after he died

sutton and p&n are sweet. I have tested about 5 sets from china - product samples to kc tools NOT KC TOOLS. all the chinese ones are so marginal, 1 being great in a wooden box. the cheap ones have flights that have massive edges / burrs that tear the threads and are almost useless. look at the taps closely and its pretty obvious.

that said I would never pay retail for a big set, just paying for 80% of sizes that I would never use. better off buying a set of 3 taps in each of the sizes you use in a top brand. benefit too is if they break the "set" is still easy to replace. and with things like the airlocker (1/4 NPT from memory) thread only very few sets have the size anyway.

cheers bru

I have one of the blue cheapie sets that I only used for soft metals and non-critical stuff that I am fabricating. They suck for heavier work.

Then I have a few key sizes that I bought in either Sutton or P&N brands. These are the sizes I use all the time. I have M4, M6, 3/8 UNC and a few others. The difference in steel and manufacturing quality is pretty obvious at a glance.

I got some of them down at a local second hand shop for stuff all! The guy had trays full of them under his counter and I bought the ones I wanted for a couple of bucks each, even in fairly large threads (which tend to be pretty pricey new).

P&n, Sutton, Dormer, Yamawa, all come off the top of my head, they will all break if used incorretly doesn't matter what brand, but yeah you certain know the difference when you need to tap a lot of holes in 4140

Chinese cheap stuff is probally only good to use to clear out existing threads that are full of junk/rust/small damage i dont think they would stay that sharp for too long

Sutton, P&N, can't go wrong with these two.

Cheers

P&N are great IME

Used to think sutton were good, but a mate recently bought a new one with chipped/missing threads. Took it back, and about half the sutton taps the same size had defects (chips, double-cut grooves, etc). When he used the one he bought, there were a couple of chipped leading edges after 1-2 holes.

ISUZUROVER wrote:P&N are great IME

Used to think sutton were good, but a mate recently bought a new one with chipped/missing threads. Took it back, and about half the sutton taps the same size had defects (chips, double-cut grooves, etc). When he used the one he bought, there were a couple of chipped leading edges after 1-2 holes.

wouldn;t be suprised if they had gone offshore,

sounds like a material defect, or chinaitis lol

I only ever really clean out old thread's or tap small plate 4-6mm otherwise it's mostly ally stuff that I do.

for that the total tools home brand stuff has been fine.

sutton and p&n come from the same factory

taspatrol wrote:i had an old p & n set that my grandpa gave to me before he died in the wooden box

No disrespect to yr grandpa but had to have a bit of a grin at this.....

RED60 wrote:

taspatrol wrote:i had an old p & n set that my grandpa gave to me before he died in the wooden box

No disrespect to yr grandpa but had to have a bit of a grin at this.....

as did i...

Can't go wrong with snap-on in my opinion. lifetime warranty.. can't complain about that. Many people complain that they are over priced but the way i see it you only have to buy the tool once and if it breaks then you get a free one.

Tomo_89 wrote:Can't go wrong with snap-on in my opinion. lifetime warranty.. can't complain about that. Many people complain that they are over priced but the way i see it you only have to buy the tool once and if it breaks then you get a free one.

taps go blunt no matter what brand they are, cant see a cutting tool being replaced

Ice wrote:Chinese cheap stuff is probally only good to use to clear out existing threads that are full of junk/rust/small damage i dont think they would stay that sharp for too long

I've probably had my 2 sets for about 15 years and to date I've only broken the one tap which was my fault entirely..... that tap is still usable tho, its just a tad shorter now !

None of the taps is showing any real wear and most have done it tough over the years..... the thickest material I've threaded from a bare hole would be through a 2" shaft with the M12 tap !



Like any tool, correct use will see it last a long time

Kingy

V8Patrol wrote:

Ice wrote:Chinese cheap stuff is probally only good to use to clear out existing threads that are full of junk/rust/small damage i dont think they would stay that sharp for too long

I've probably had my 2 sets for about 15 years and to date I've only broken the one tap which was my fault entirely..... that tap is still usable tho, its just a tad shorter now !

None of the taps is showing any real wear and most have done it tough over the years..... the thickest material I've threaded from a bare hole would be through a 2" shaft with the M12 tap !



Like any tool, correct use will see it last a long time

Kingy

Im sure they could be fine for brass or ally or anything soft for your home handyman type thing

my view is of an industrial nature and seeing cnc usage of a tap, when you have a few thousand taped holes to do a few spare taps is quite common

knowing the sorta stuff kingy does, it would be fairly well close to industial

I use a lot of taps and dies in my trade and brand dosen't matter as long as there made out of high speed steel or HSS DON'T by the alloyed tool steals I find them to be to brital for general barstardisation (and yes that's a word just made it up then )
and tend to chip teeth, crack or snap whithout warning

Oh well thats my 0.02c for the day and sorry about the spelling jiged most of my english classes

I'm looking into buying a small tap & die set as well. I haven't used them much in the past and only need them for occasional usage.

Is Total Tools OK to go with, and what are the most common sizes? E.G, I've noticed in the M5 range they have a few different sizes - 0.8, 0.9 and 1.0. What's the go there? I thought M5 has a standard thread?

TheOtherLeft wrote:I'm looking into buying a small tap & die set as well. I haven't used them much in the past and only need them for occasional usage.

Is Total Tools OK to go with, and what are the most common sizes? E.G, I've noticed in the M5 range they have a few different sizes - 0.8, 0.9 and 1.0. What's the go there? I thought M5 has a standard thread?

I think M5 x 0.8 is the common size; someone might correct me. But they are all valid metric sizes.

TheOtherLeft wrote:I'm looking into buying a small tap & die set as well. I haven't used them much in the past and only need them for occasional usage.

Is Total Tools OK to go with, and what are the most common sizes? E.G, I've noticed in the M5 range they have a few different sizes - 0.8, 0.9 and 1.0. What's the go there? I thought M5 has a standard thread?

Pitches can be anything really, some manufactrers actually use weird ones so only their specifc parts match up

.8 is the normal <coarse> pitch for an M5

dormer would be my pick. When looking for taps check for ISO, International Standards Organisation, these will be all common thread pitches in metric.

Cobolt High Speed Steel tends to last longer, it will be marked on the taps, CoHSS.

Dormer is owned by Sandvik. It was bought around 2 years ago to back up Sandvik Coromant. Coromant do carbide n dormer the HSS.

When looking at the taps make sure they are fully ground, the cheap quality taps will have black or sandblasted sections on them and will not last long, and also cand have hard spots in them making them brittle.

M5x0.8 is the ISO pitch.

I have worked years in CNC machining and toolmaking and have used many brands of cutting tools and found Sandvik coromant and dormer to be the best products.

Adam GQ wrote:sutton and p&n come from the same factory

Lots of products come from the same factory, but are made to completely different specs or use different materials.

I recently bought a P&N 1/4" BSPT Tap. It was much better quality than the sutton taps in the same size my mate bought.

Don't buy a Snap-On set, we have one at work and not only did it cost way too much, it doesn't have half the sizes you need so we are constantly buying more seperate taps and dies!