Home made threading tap

[mars-red]

Very Impressive, Mars-Red! Have never considered making a custom tap and your write up makes perfect sense. Interesting threading tool, looks to be an old end mill reshaped...was it carbide? Thanks for sharing a great build. ~PJ

Thanks PJ! Yes, you are spot on, the threading tool I'm using in there was indeed ground from a broken end mill. I use this one on those rare occasions that require small threads turned up close to a shoulder. It's not carbide, it's HSS. I don't generally care for carbide, I only use it when I need to cut steel that has been left tool-hard (for example, when I've accidentally broken off a tap in a work piece that I want to salvage, lol).

I keep broken HSS end mills and drills kicking around, you never know when they'll come in handy for something like this. Small broken center drills sometimes make great blanks for home made fly cutter inserts.