Tapper Chuck

[Crusty]

I use an old Supreme Push-Pull Tapper a lot (when I can) for threading holes, but collets for this tool are rare, hardly ever the diameter of the tap that I need to hold and Supreme is now a long gone company.

I made an adjustable tap chuck to fit my tapper starting with a reasonable quality manual tap handle and machined the handle end of it into a flange with an integral key milled into the outer end and corresponding notches were milled into the end of the tapper spindle. Then I made a nut which threads onto the tapper spindle (weird 5/8-18 threads), captures the modified tap handle and holds it onto the spindle with the key in the notches to transmit torque without slipping. This just made my tapper a lot more useful because I can hold any size tap now up to 7/16" in it. Larger threaded holes still require a tap handle but I wouldn't attempt to machine thread them anyway.

Another plan that came together well.



I also got to try my re-engineered TIG foot control for the first time and it works well and is much more controllable than the factory supplied pedal.

[tooly]

I use an old Supreme Push-Pull Tapper a lot (when I can) for threading holes, but collets for this tool are rare, hardly ever the diameter of the tap that I need to hold and Supreme is now a long gone company.

I made an adjustable tap chuck to fit my tapper starting with a reasonable quality manual tap handle and machined the handle end of it into a flange with an integral key milled into the outer end and corresponding notches were milled into the end of the tapper spindle. Then I made a nut which threads onto the tapper spindle (weird 5/8-18 threads), captures the modified tap handle and holds it onto the spindle with the key in the notches to transmit torque without slipping. This just made my tapper a lot more useful because I can hold any size tap now up to 7/16" in it. Larger threaded holes still require a tap handle but I wouldn't attempt to machine thread them anyway.

Another plan that came together well.



I also got to try my re-engineered TIG foot control for the first time and it works well and is much more controllable than the factory supplied pedal.

I would like to see details of your tig foot control, I find the factory ones very bulky and awkward to use.

[Crusty]

There's enough info posted on my builder page for someone to make one similar but I don't do play-school instructions because every case is different and I believe the thought exercise of design is important.

TIG Pedal

Essentially what I did was buy a used bass drum kick pedal on Craigslist ($10) and then mounted my welder's control box onto it with a timing belt reduction set to mate the control box's 30º of rotation to the kick pedal's rotation of 90º, giving me much finer welding current control and also making it heavier so that I'm not continually chasing it around the welding table.

[tooly]

Thanks for the pics, it is a bit specialized for me, I was considering converting one of the on / off foot switch control boxes but there is not a lot of room in them.