Frank Niro
KNIFE MAKER
Well it took me a while but I did get it and do have it set up. The good part is it does a great job with following instructions from Les George which I very much appreciated. This tapping head is what I would call a no name item. It comes in three sizes, the smallest is the JSN7 made for the 0 X 80 screws and a few larger sizes. I have seen it advertised in several sites in the USA, in Great Britain where they sell them for twice the price as in North America and here in Canada. I contacted Accusize Industries here in Canada who ship world wide and also bought a 1/2 inch straight shank arbor with a JT6 end to fit the tapping head. This allowed me to mount it in the new drill press jaws which had a slow speed turning speed of 206 RPM. It comes with two arbors one of which can't be used with the tapping head, which seems a bit odd, but I'm very limited in my knowledge on these shank tapers. It also came with 2 collets that are made up of both metal and a flexible material of some sort. The "brake" arm was too short for my drill press so I simply made a longer one out of a similar sized rod. The tension adjustment for this tapping head literally will go down to "0" and does allow you to make very small changes by means of a rotating collar with a set screw to fix it in position with. The tap itself is centered by means of two set screws at 180 degrees from one another and then the retaining collar for the collet is tightened. You may need to adjust these two screws to get the tap to turn without a lot of run out. I say a lot because this this is a very flexible "head". A solid chuck would mean these small tapes wouldn't have a chance of staying in one piece. I have tapped over 50 0 x 80 holes and only broke one tap because of a poor installation to begin with. I don't feel I have yet a good operating rythem but this tapping head seems able to compensate for that. I feel it's a great tool to have and sure now understand why members encouraged me to go to this auto tapping system. I believe the cost of this NEW self reversing tapping head with shank delivered to me was under $250 . Frank