The Importance of Choosing the Right Tap

For precision cutting, choosing the right tool is essential. Taps, which are used to create internal threads on a workpiece, provide accuracy, customization, and cost-efficiency across a wide range of machining and manufacturing tasks. With the right tap, threads are formed with precision, ensuring excellent engagement, durability, and wear resistance. Taps come in a variety of materials, coatings, flute designs, lengths, and other specifications. To help you select the ideal tap for your needs, the following provides an overview of each specification, ensuring optimal efficiency and productivity.

Determining the Application

Hand tapping requires manual control and is best-suited for low-volume or delicate tasks where feel and on-the-fly adjustments are crucial. This method offers flexibility in tight or hard-to-reach spaces but is a slower, manual process.

Machine tapping, executed with a drill press or tapping machine, with specialized designs to efficiently handle chips, is ideal for high-speed, consistent threading in high volume, offering greater precision and uniformity while reducing operator fatigue and effortlessly handling tougher materials.

Determining the Type of Hole

When choosing what taps are right for you, you will need to consider the type of hole you're trying to make; whether you'll be hand or machine tapping, and the materials on which you'll be working.

• A blind hole does not go all the way through the material.

• A through hole goes completely through the material.

Tap Geometries

For Hand Tapping of Through and Blind Holes

Choosing the Right Taps

	Hand Taps	Spiral Point Taps	Spiral Flute Taps	Pipe Taps
Application	Wrench (manual)	Machine	Machine	For tapping into pipes and fittings
Description	Hand taps have 3 standard chamfer geometries including taper, plug, and bottoming. They have straight flutes and are the most popular and versatile styles of taps in general machine tapping operations.	An additional grind on the tip of the tap propels the chips ahead causing less load and clogging in the flutes. The combination of forward chip ejection and reduced cutting torque allows for faster and more efficient tapping in through hole applications	The design of spiral flute taps is conducive to improved chip flow. The flutes pull the chips out of the workpiece, which reduces the changes of tap breakage in blind hole applications. Featuring helical flutes that propel the chips upward and allows for better coolant flow to the cutting area, helping to dissipate heat and prolong tool life.	Pipe taps are specialized tools used for tapping NPT pipe threads to mate with threaded pipe and fittings that conform to standard pipe sizes and provide tight, leak-proof connections.
Chip Removal	Manual chip breakage	Chips break automatically - Evacuates chips down	Chips break automatically - Pulls chips out	Manual chip breakage
Type of Hole	Through (for Taper and Plug),      Blind (for Taper, Plug and Bottoming)	Blind for Plug	Blind for Bottoming	Through for Plug

Selecting the Tap Based on the Material

The next step is assessing the material you'll be working on. Once you know the material, you'll be able to match it with the appropriate tap material and coating.