- Joined
- Aug 13, 2020
- Messages
- 1,340
I ordered a tapping head off eBay. The next day I got an email from the seller that it was not operational. He offered to send me another, albeit slightly smaller, one in addition. I only paid $50, so worst case is that I had a tapping head that would only go up to 1/4" for $50, and some scrap. I agreed, and he was so happy that he included some taps with the shipment.
When they got here, I tore the non-operational one apart. The problem was a loose screw that allowed the square, direction-changing bar to slide out. You can see it inside the housing there. It slides through the input shaft and engages a couple cogs on the gears to drive the output shaft. The small gears are the reversing gears. Pull up, and that square bar engages cogs on the gear that is still in the housing, which drives the reversing gears which drives the output shaft. Push down, and the bar drops past the reversing gears and directly engages the output via the cogs on the large gear that is out on the table. You can see the two cogs on that gear. When the bar fell out of the input shaft, the input shaft couldn't drive anything.
Cleaned it up and put everything back together and all worked perfectly. For $50, I got two tapping heads and a set of taps!!
![KIMG0797[1].JPG](https://www.hobby-machinist.com/data/attachments/328/328865-24d57e2455c7c692f90fe43e1d0e8e70.jpg?hash=JNV-JFXHxp "KIMG0797[1].JPG")
![KIMG0799[1].JPG](https://www.hobby-machinist.com/data/attachments/328/328866-14fbaa0956685a91001f4dbbed59761a.jpg?hash=FPuqCVZoWp "KIMG0799[1].JPG")
When they got here, I tore the non-operational one apart. The problem was a loose screw that allowed the square, direction-changing bar to slide out. You can see it inside the housing there. It slides through the input shaft and engages a couple cogs on the gears to drive the output shaft. The small gears are the reversing gears. Pull up, and that square bar engages cogs on the gear that is still in the housing, which drives the reversing gears which drives the output shaft. Push down, and the bar drops past the reversing gears and directly engages the output via the cogs on the large gear that is out on the table. You can see the two cogs on that gear. When the bar fell out of the input shaft, the input shaft couldn't drive anything.
Cleaned it up and put everything back together and all worked perfectly. For $50, I got two tapping heads and a set of taps!!
