# New Bad Feture Found In Cheep Tap And Die Set



## stupoty (Dec 2, 2015)

Hello, I know every loves to hate at the cheep generic tap and die sets but I have found somthing I havn't seen any one moan about  yay   (skip to bottom for quick explination  )

So I posted a pic in the what you been doing post about a little air line addaptor, it has an M5 fine on one end, well I only just realised this earlier today.  Their I was thinking a US air brush company was just using some odd spec thread 

I had found out an M5 with a 0.5 pitch was required to thread into the airbrush line so I turned the OD to about 5mm ready to use the fine M5 die from my set as I realized visually it was finer than a regular M5 bolt.

Luckily the die's have the size stamped on, full set from M3 to M12 fine and course with a couple of extras like pipe threads.

ow the m5 0.5 dosnt match the numbers on either M5 die, humm

Any way I ended up using a 52tpi and single pointed it on the lathe(fits nice by the way)

So today I realise the M5 fine has been substituted for some rare thread size thats used on classic honda's ?? wtf





So I have M5 x 0.8 and M5 x 0.9  (M5 course and M5 super funky) , ahhhhhhh  (I will be checking them all later, it's a 40 piece set I think I will do it whilst I have a coffee)

Is this common across the cheap'y sets ? I've done a quick google and found a couple more of the cheep sets that list the weird M5 size also.

This is the one I have ,
http://www.toolstation.com/shop/Hand+Tools/d10/Engineering+Tools/sd190/Tap+&+Die+Set/p86203

Do the Imperial sets have odd ball dies too ?

Stuart


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## David VanNorman (Dec 2, 2015)

I used to work in a business that had all funky threads. The sewing machine business . Everything was funky.


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## stupoty (Dec 2, 2015)

David VanNorman said:


> I used to work in a business that had all funky threads. The sewing machine business . Everything was funky.



I just looked through the set and found that their is a total of 3 useless (to me) sizes.  I double checked the ISO list of threads.

M3 0.6
M4 0.75
M5 0.9

any good for sewing machines ?


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## Bob Korves (Dec 2, 2015)

They are just trying to go back to the days before Joseph Whitworth, when everyone made their own threads any way they pleased, and every shop had their own in house standards and made their own tools.  Nothing was compatible with anything else.  Your customers would need to come back to you for parts or painstakingly make a custom part to fit.  Whitworth changed the world...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Whitworth


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## TOOLMASTER (Dec 2, 2015)

M5 IS very close to 10-32


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## stupoty (Dec 2, 2015)

TOOLMASTER said:


> M5 IS very close to 10-32



Yeah the handy match ups are helpful (with my imperial thread cutting facilities on the lath).

I've just realized this has actually messed up a part I was making (not much,just a little) as wrong (made up standard) M4 was in the die holder, grr I must have gone which one is the course die ow it's the one with the bigger number , ahhhh.

I have now taken them out of the case and put them in their own sin bin.

I also popped an email to the manufacturer and pointed out this was a bit rubbish.

I've been looking at the cheep set's and out of about 10 or so that I looked at only 1 had the correct sizes for M3,M4,M5 fine the rest had the dodge sizes I have in this set.

Stuart


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## juiceclone (Dec 2, 2015)

when u say cheap sets, u probably mean Chinese?  I have two cheap metric sets. One works well enough, the other is ...trash... When I look at it with magnification, they were made with burrs and incomplete shapes that were then hardened and shipped.  Some are unusable and some usable..sort of....  And yes both sets have different weird threads mixed in, which is why I keep the trash set as well as the workable one.


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## stupoty (Dec 2, 2015)

juiceclone said:


> when u say cheap sets, u probably mean Chinese?  I have two cheap metric sets. One works well enough, the other is ...trash... When I look at it with magnification, they were made with burrs and incomplete shapes that were then hardened and shipped.  Some are unusable and some usable..sort of....  And yes both sets have different weird threads mixed in, which is why I keep the trash set as well as the workable one.



Yeah the generic metal tin 40 piece kind of set, it's the one I linked to.  I thought I would see what the company had to say as they are sort of mid range of low end tools  The cheapest one I could find with a full and correct set of metric fine&course was about £75  (Draper used to make quality tools a long time ago now I think they mainly import china brand now, their slightly cheaper set has the same wrong sizes as the rest though).

http://www.rapidonline.com/Tools-Eq...nation-Tap-and-Die-Set-Metric-and-Bsp-91-4348


To be fair to the set I have I have only broken one of the taps in the set and a couple are less than totaly sharp (although often used taps have been purchased as individuals) and i've had it at least 2 years. 

The Die holder in it gives you instant hand pains when using it, I think it's an amazing design feature they must have worked on for ages 

Stuart


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