Homemade hand thread tapping machine.

[tonyfoale]

Sometimes a project gets made because the right materials and/or components appear, Such was the case of the hand tapping device, the construction of which forms the basis of this post.

Click on thumbnails for full size images.

For quite a long time a hand tapper as featured here has been on my rainy day list but it had never risen to the status of do it NOW, That is until out of the blue it occurred to me that parts of my old Russian photo enlarger (from pre-digital camera days) provided most of the bits that I would otherwise have to make. I knew that it would come in handy one rainy day.



The rest of this tool was be made from stuff out of the scrap bin.
I went digging for some angle iron for the base but that had all been used except for this old piece of frame work,



A few minutes with a cutoff blade in an angle grinder soon had it looking more useful. I think that this might have been something that my son used for welding practice and I needed to add a bit more weld in places. Then it was mounted on the mill to flatten the surface to which the top plate would be welded.



Once the plate had been welded on the base was inverted and three feet added.



These were then machined flat to give a plane surface to machine the top surface from.



The tap driving spindle was made from a piece of Thomson shaft fitted with a 3/8" square to drive a Erwin tap holder.





The best way to follow this build is to watch the 24 minute video on Youtube at

This video discusses in a lot of detail how the logic behind various features evolved as well as an explanation of how drill or mill powered tapping heads work.

BTW. the welding shots were done with the method described in my post of a few days back http://www.homemadetools.net/forum/w...welding+videos

[tonyfoale]

A few years back I also used a part of the enlarger for another job.
I had bought a cheap Chinese USB microscope camera. The camera part worked fine but the mounting and focus arrangement was not fit to even keep in the scrap box. The focus adjustment from the enlarger needed very little work to repurpose it to hold and adjust the camera. I mounted the two uprights to a piece of 10 mm plate to add some weight in the base for stability. It is now a very useful tool for measuring small items and for magnifying the edges of tool bits and drills.

Click thumbnail for full size image

[wizard69]

Tony that is that is one great video.

Better yet two great DIY solutions in one thread. Thanks for the post
!

[tonyfoale]

Tony that is that is one great video.

Better yet two great DIY solutions in one thread. Thanks for the post
!

Now that everybody uses digital I expect that enlargers are available for free or little more from flea markets and/or yard sales if you live in the US or boot sales for those in the UK. I really miss my regular Saturday morning tour of local yard sales from when I lived in the US.
Of course anyone who did their own film processing might have one in the attic or basement.

[olderdan]

Great video and tutorial thanks for posting.

[basil3w]

Tony-
Great video - Thanks!

[Shelly142]

Tony,
Very clever idea and what a great way to repurpose something no longer being used. I would like to plagiarize your idea and incorporate it into my tapping pillar, a much better and easier way of securing the tap. I have a commercially mfd. hand taper and the method used to secure the taps is a real pain. The holders are not easily removed from the tap handle and the spring detent keeps falling on the shop floor. Your design looks to be a significant improvement.
Thanks, Shelly142

[DIYer]

Thanks tonyfoale! We've added your Tapping Machine to our Tapping and Threading category,
as well as to your builder page: tonyfoale's Homemade Tools. Your receipt:

Tapping Machine by tonyfoale

tags: tapping

[DIYer]

Thanks tonyfoale! We've added your USB Microscope Stand to our Dollies and Stands category,
as well as to your builder page: tonyfoale's Homemade Tools. Your receipt:

USB Microscope Stand by tonyfoale

tags: stand

[wizard69]

Now that everybody uses digital I expect that enlargers are available for free or little more from flea markets and/or yard sales if you live in the US or boot sales for those in the UK. I really miss my regular Saturday morning tour of local yard sales from when I lived in the US.
Of course anyone who did their own film processing might have one in the attic or basement.

Well you will not have to worry about yard sales for a few months, a couple of feet of snow has to melt around here before that will happen.

Speaking of old photographic equipment, the old hardware from the 35mm days is often dirt cheap as almost nobody uses old hardware anymore. So things like lenses, camera bodies and other equipment is dirt cheap. Lenses can often be purposed into high quality magnifiers, adapted to cheap USB cameras and other useful shop devices. Not to be forgotten is the photo lab equipment that you have put to use.

This really saddens me to see this technology completely pass by in a life time. I spent a lot of time and money on used medium format equipment in the 1970's and 1980's. That along with one Nikon 35mm camera are all but worthless these days. Loved the challenge of getting a slide that was perfect as could be.