Are "off shore" tapping heads worth owning?

J

jmarkwolf

Active User
H-M Supporter Gold Member
I need to tap a lot more holes than I care to do by hand, but can't justify an expensive Tapmatic or similar. I've looked at used ones on Ebay but that's a bit of a crap shoot.

There are some more economical new ones from Asia (check link below) but am concerned they might be junk.

Can anyone advise their experience with less than "premium" tapping heads?

cme-tools.myshopify.com

Reversible Tapping Head | CME Tools

Reversible Tapping Head ACCURATE TAPPING APPLICATIONS. PRE-SET TORQUE CONTROL PERMITS EASY OPERATION OF TAP BRAKE TORQUE CONTROL CHATTER-FREE CLUTCH HAS POSITIVE ENGAGEMENT WHICH ALLOWS FOR A SMOOTHER MORE ACCURATE TAPPING OPERATION AND MORE RAPID REVERSAL RADIAL FLOAT IS SELF-CENTERING TO...
cme-tools.myshopify.com cme-tools.myshopify.com
 
Sounds like a double crap shoot here . Used premium vs. new of unknown quality . Never owning an import , I can say Procunier or TapMatics , Encos all work great . :dunno:
 
Probably not as good as a Tapmatic, but at least they come from a US based vendor so that's some protection.
 
I found a short Youtube video of a guy dismantling and doing some maintenance on a Procunier tapping head. I was surprised to see how simple they are on the inside. I wonder if Tapmatics are similar.

 
OP update:

I started shopping around for a tapping head for the projects that I have planned, which have more holes than I care to tap by hand. I saw some economical new "off shore" units which I'm always leary of, but I got on Ebay and started nosing around.

I saw one moderately priced Procunier and I noticed that the seller, concidentally enough, is just a few miles down the road from me. I contacted him and we agreed to meet at his location. Took me less than 10 minutes to get there.

He had a few pics in his Ebay ad, but nothing to visualize the scale. When I first saw it I almost dropped my teeth. It is much more massive than any I'd seen on Youtube, at a full 6 inches diameter and and probably 12 inches (or more) tall including the integral MT3 shank and tap chuck, and pretty beefy.

He had indicated that it came with 3 tap collets, the smallest being for a 3/8 inch tap shank. I need to tap 1/4 inch holes but I gambled I could probably buy a 1/4 inch collet somewhere. Lo and behold he had overlooked a 1/4 inch collet that was sitting in the chuck, so I lucked out there. It has the MT3 shank for which I'll need to buy an R8 adapter to fit my Acer Bridgeport clone, but they are reasonably priced. It was missing the wrenches, but included the 4 collets (for 1/4, 3/8, 1/2 and 5/8 inch shank taps), the anti-torque bar, an additional MT2 to MT3 sleeve, and a nice storage box.

It's more massive than I'll likely ever need, but it probably won't even grunt tapping my 1/4 inch holes.

So for the grand total price of $120 (no tax, no shipping charges), plus the $25 cost of an MT3 to R8 adapter I am the proud owner (see pic below). Hopefully it'll run as good as it looks. I'm anxious to fire it up but I'll have to wait till I get the R8 adapter.

Procunier_13003.jpg
 
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Finally mounted my new-to-me Procunier after resolving the MT3-to-R8 adapter issue. See pic below.

The quill is all the way up and the table is all the way down, the work piece is mounted low in the Kurt, with under an inch to spare with a 1/4" tap in the chuck. I thought it would be tight but workable.

Procunier_mounted.jpg
 
dang, that's a lot of headroom taken up! Any chance the MT3 arbor is replaceable? If not, I'd be sorely tempted to try and turn it down to a straight shank and then hold it in a collet. That would get you 2 or 3" back at least.
 
mattthemuppet2 said:
dang, that's a lot of headroom taken up! Any chance the MT3 arbor is replaceable? If not, I'd be sorely tempted to try and turn it down to a straight shank and then hold it in a collet. That would get you 2 or 3" back at least.
Click to expand...
I'd wonder if at least you could get a shorter R8/MT3 adapter. The image here looks way shorter than yours which might buy ~3 inches back: https://www.amazon.com/Shank-Drill-Chuck-Adapter-Sleeve/dp/B07NYN26DX

I couldn't find sufficient documentation on this one to see if it is replacable, but a handful of the ones I looked at were actually JT33 with an adapter.
 
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