I have been having a little problem with taps of all different qualities and sizes swamping my cigar boxes. That's probably not the best way to store them. So, I have started trying to figure out a way to store them more efficiently. One thing that helped a lot was a plastic spice bottle that I put broken taps in. They are great for little pieces of tool steel used in small cutting tools, for example boring bars. The last straw was when somebody gave me a box of helicoil taps in both inch and metric. I said I don't use helicoil's, but he said that they were going in the trash anyway, so I might as well give them a try. I strip out a thread about once ever five to ten years, so I haven't thought of stocking this item, although my auto mechanic friends really like them.
Anyway, I found a drawer box of over 100 taps at a machinist liquidation sale. It was $20 which was worth trying. They were pretty much all name brands, or brands that I did not recognize. Since the person who bought them must have been discerning, I assume they were all the good HSS taps that one will find at the industrial supply and not the big box stores. There was UB, Butterfield, Balax, R&N, Hy-pro, Prototex, OSG and some odd Japanese brand. All the larger tap drawers were empty, and there were only taps up to 3/8 in inch and 6mm in metric, but that will do for me since I do have a few of the larger sizes. Most of my better taps are GTD or Hanson, so therefore not always HSS. This was a pretty good haul and should keep me stocked for a while.
This is the way to get good quality taps. If one is patient, they often appear at sales and liquidation events.
Anyway, I found a drawer box of over 100 taps at a machinist liquidation sale. It was $20 which was worth trying. They were pretty much all name brands, or brands that I did not recognize. Since the person who bought them must have been discerning, I assume they were all the good HSS taps that one will find at the industrial supply and not the big box stores. There was UB, Butterfield, Balax, R&N, Hy-pro, Prototex, OSG and some odd Japanese brand. All the larger tap drawers were empty, and there were only taps up to 3/8 in inch and 6mm in metric, but that will do for me since I do have a few of the larger sizes. Most of my better taps are GTD or Hanson, so therefore not always HSS. This was a pretty good haul and should keep me stocked for a while.
This is the way to get good quality taps. If one is patient, they often appear at sales and liquidation events.
That's where they ended up when summer lawn duties took over and had to put the clean out on the back burner .
