AUTOMATIC TAPPING MACHINE

SYNOPSIS

This project deals with Design and Fabrication of Automatic

Tapping Machine. In the present market the combined cum tapping

machine is not available. For tapping we need either a manual process

or a tapping attached in a machine. The former one consumes lot of

time the later is quite costlier.

For tapping operation we need to rotate the spindle in both

clockwise and counter clockwise direction. In our machine we have

made bevel gear arrangement for auto reversal of the spindle. Thus

based on the functional and economical aspects we have fabricated a

unique machine.

INTRODUCTION

TAP

Taps are cutting tools used to create screw threads, which is

called threading. A tap is used to cut the female portion of the mating

pair (e.g., a nut). A die is used to cut the male portion of the mating pair

(e.g., a bolt). The process of cutting threads using a tap is called

tapping, whereas the process using a die is called threading. Both tools

can be used to clean up a thread, which is called chasing.

PROCESS:

The machine is one of the most important machine tool. In a

machine holes may be drilled quickly. The holes is generated by the

rotating edge of a cutting tool known as the drill which exerts large

force on the work clamped on the table. As the machine exerts vertical

pressure to originate a hole it is also called as a “Drill Press”.

While modern nuts and bolts are routinely made of metal, this

was not the case in earlier ages, when woodworking tools were

employed to fashion very large wooden bolts and nuts for use in

winches, windmills, watermills, and flour mills of the Middle Ages; the

ease of cutting and replacing wooden parts was balanced by the need to

resist large amounts of torque, and bear up against ever heavier loads of

weight. As the loads grew ever heavier, bigger and stronger bolts were

needed to resist breakage. Some nuts and bolts were measured by the

foot or yard. This development eventually led to a complete

replacement of wood parts with metal parts of an identical measure.

When a wooden part broke, it usually snapped, ripped, or tore. The

splinters having been sanded off, the remaining parts were encased in a

makeshift mold of clay, and molten metal poured into the mold, so that

an identical replacement could be made on the spot.

Metalworking taps were often made by their users during the

18th and 19th centuries (especially if the user was skilled in

toolmaking), using such tools as lathes and files for the shaping, and the

smithy for hardening and tempering. Thus builders of, for example,

locomotives, firearms, or textile machinery were likely to make their

own taps . During the 19th century the machining industries evolved

greatly, and the practice of buying taps from suppliers specializing in

them gradually supplanted most such in-house work. Joseph Clement

was one such early vendor of taps, starting in 1828. With the

introduction of more advanced milling practice in the 1860s and 1870s,

tasks such as cutting a tap's flutes with a hand file became a thing of the

past. In the early 20th century, thread-grinding practice went through

significant evolution, further advancing the state of the art (and applied

science) of cutting screw threads, including those of taps .

During the 19th and 20th centuries, thread standardization was

evolving simultaneously with the techniques of thread generation,

including taps .
 The largest tap company to exist in the United States was

Greenfield Tap & Die (GTD) of Greenfield, Massachusetts. GTD was

so irreplaceably vital to the Allied war effort from 1940–1945 that anti-

aircraft guns were placed around its campus in anticipation of possible

Axis air attack. The GTD brand is now a part of Widia Products Group.

TAP TYPES

A tap cuts a thread on the inside surface of a hole, creating a

female surface which functions like a nut. The three taps in the image

illustrate the basic types commonly used by most machinists:

Bottoming tap or plug tap

The tap illustrated in the top of the image has a continuous

cutting edge with almost no taper between 1 and 1.5 threads of taper is

typical. This feature enables a bottoming tap to cut threads to the

bottom of a blind hole. A bottoming tap is usually used to cut threads in

a hole that has already been partially threaded using one of the more

tapered types of tap; the tapered end ("tap chamfer") of a bottoming tap

is too short to successfully start into an unthreaded hole. In the US, they

are commonly known as bottoming taps, but in Australia and Britain

they are also known as plug taps.

Intermediate tap, second tap, or plug tap

The tap illustrated in the middle of the image has tapered cutting

edges, which assist in aligning and starting the tap into an untapped

hole. The number of tapered threads typically ranges from 3 to 5. Plug

taps are the most commonly used type of tap. In the US, they are

commonly known as plug taps, whereas in Australia and Britain they

are commonly known as second taps.

Taper tap

The small tap illustrated at the bottom of the image is similar to

an intermediate tap but has a more pronounced taper to the cutting

edges. This feature gives the taper tap a very gradual cutting action that

is less aggressive than that of the plug tap. The number of tapered

threads typically ranges from 8 to 10. A taper tap is most often used

when the material to be tapped is difficult to work (e.g., alloy steel) or

the tap is of a very small diameter and thus prone to breakage.

The above illustrated taps are generally referred to as hand taps,

since they are, by design, intended to be manually operated. During

operation, it is necessary with a hand tap to periodically reverse rotation

to break the chip formed during the cutting process, thus preventing an

effect called "crowding" that may cause breakage.

 The most common type of power driven tap is the "spiral point"

plug tap (also referred to as a "gun tap"), whose cutting edges are

angularly displaced relative to the tap centerline. This feature causes the

tap to continuously break the chip and eject it forward into the hole,

preventing crowding. Spiral point taps are usually used in holes that go

all the way through the material, so that the chips can escape. Another

version of the spiral point plug tap is the spiral flute tap, whose flutes

resemble those of a twist drill. Spiral flute taps are widely used in high

speed, automatic tapping operations due to their ability to work well in

blind holes.

Whether manual or automatic, the processing of tapping begins

with forming and slightly countersinking a hole (usually by drilling)

with a diameter somewhat smaller than the tap's diameter. The correct

hole diameter may be determined by consulting a drill and tap size

chart, a standard reference item found in many machine shops. If the

hole is to be drilled, the proper diameter is called the tap drill size.

In lieu of a tap drill chart, it is possible with inch sized taps to compute

the correct tap drill diameter as follows:

 where is the tap drill size, is the major diameter of the tap

(e.g., ⅜ inch for a ⅜"-16 tap), and is the number of threads per inch

(16 in the case of a ⅜"-16 tap). For a ⅜"-16 tap, the above formula

would produce 5⁄16 as a result, which is the correct tap drill diameter for

a ⅜"-16 tap. The result produces a tap drill size that results in an

approximate 75 percent thread.

The correct tap drill diameter for metric sized taps is computed

as:

where is the tap drill size, is the major diameter of the tap

(e.g., 10 mm for a M10×1.5 tap), and pitch is the pitch of the thread

(1.5 mm in the case of a standard M10 tap) and so the correct drill size

is 8.5 mm. This works for both fine and coarse pitches.

With soft or average hardness materials, such as plastic,

aluminum or mild steel, the common practice is to use an intermediate

(plug) tap to cut the threads. If the threads are to extend to the bottom of

a blind hole, the intermediate (plug) tap will be used to cut threads until

the point of the tap reaches bottom, after which a bottoming tap will be

used to finish the hole. Frequent ejection of the chips must be made in

such an operation to avoid jamming and possibly breaking the tap. With
hard materials, the machinist may start with a taper tap, whose less

severe diameter transition reduces the amount of torque required to cut

the threads. If threads are to be cut to the bottom of a blind hole, the

taper tap will be followed by an intermediate (plug) tap and then a

bottoming tap to finish the operation.

MACHINE TAPPING

Tapping may either be achieved by hand tapping by using a set of

taps first tap, second tap & final (finish) tap or using a machine to do

the tapping, such as a lathe, radial drilling machine, bench type drill

machine, pillar type drill machine, vertical milling machines, HMCs,

VMCs. Machine tapping is faster, and generally more accurate because

human error is eliminated. Final tapping is achieved with single tap.

Although in general machine tapping is more accurate, tapping

operations have traditionally been very tricky to execute due to frequent

tap breakage and inconsistent quality of tapping.

Research has shown that the important reasons causing tap breakage are

as follows:
Tap-related problems:

 Wearing of tap cannot be easily quantified (use of worn-out taps)

 Use of tap with improper tap geometry for a particular

application.

 Use of non-standard or inferior quality taps.

 Clogging with chips

 Tapping does not follow the pre-tap hole (misalignment)

 Mismatch of machine feed and tap feed may cause the tap to

break in tension or compression.

 Use of improper cutting fluid or not enough fluid.

 No safety mechanism to limit torque below torque breakage value

of tap.

 Improper or zero float for use with screw machines

(recommended feed .1 slower to establish float for 40 tpi or

higher and .15 slower for 40 tpi or finer)

 Improper spindle speed

In order to overcome these problems, special tool holders are

required to minimize the chances of tap breakage during tapping. These

are usually classified as conventional tool holders and CNC tool

holders.
TOOL HOLDERS FOR TAPPING OPERATIONS

Various tool holders may be used for tapping depending on the

requirements of the user:

Aids for hand-tapping (simple jigs and fixtures)

The biggest problem with simple hand-tapping is accurately

aligning the tap with the hole so that they are coaxial in other words,

going in straight instead of on an angle. The operator must get this

alignment rather close to ideal in order to (a) produce good threads and

(b) avoid tap breakage. The deeper the depth of thread, the more

pronounced the effect of the angular error becomes. With a depth of 1

or 2 diameters, it matters little. With depths beyond 2 diameters, the

error becomes too pronounced to ignore. Another fact about this

alignment task is that the first thread or two that is cut establishes the

direction that the rest of the threads will follow. In other words, you

can't make corrections to the angle once you have cut the first thread or

two.

To help with this alignment task, several kinds of jigs and fixtures

can be used to provide the correct geometry (i.e., accurate coaxiality

with the hole) without having to use freehand skill to approximate it:
 Hand-tapper A simple fixture analogous to an arbor press in its

basic shape. Its spindle is thus held accurately perpendicular to the

work. Standard taps are held in the spindle, and the operator turns the

spindle manually via a handlebar. This fixture obviates the need for the

operator to carefully and skillfully approximate perpendicularity, which

even for a skilled operator can easily result in a 2–5° error.

Tapping guide, or "tap and reamer aligner/holder", a simple

conical guide slipped over a tap when using a regular tap handle. As

with a hand-tapper, the basic principle is simply that of a jig or fixture

to provide the correct alignment.

HEADS FOR MACHINE TOOL SPINDLES

1. Tapping attachments: these may be normal (available in a range

of tap sizes) or quick-change

2. Quick-change drilling and tapping chucks (variations available

for both CNC and manual-control tools)

3. Rigid tapping attachments (for CNC)

4. Generally the following features are required of tapping holders:

5. Twin chucking: tap is held at points of both its circular and

square cross-section, holding it steady and providing positive

rotational drive.

6. Safety clutch: The built in safety mechanism operates as soon as

the set torque limit is crossed to save the tap from breakage.

7. Float radial parallel: small misalignments are taken care of by this

float.

8. Length compensation: built in length compensation takes care of

small push or pull to the spindle or feed difference.

9. Tapping stations are worktables with a tapping head attached to

the end of a pantograph-style arm similar to that of a balanced-

arm lamp. The operator guides the tapping head to each (already-

drilled) hole and quickly taps it.

10. Drilling and tapping centers, whose name sounds similar to

that of tapping stations, are actually light-duty, affordable

machining centers of 2, 2.5, or 3 axes that are designed for a life

of mainly drilling and tapping with limited milling use.

TAPPING PROCESS:

Tapping is the operation of cutting internal threads in a hole

using a cutting tool called Tap. A tap has cutting edges in the shape of

threads.

When the tap is screwed into a hole it removes metal and cuts

internal threads for tapping the hole drilled will be smaller than the tap

size.

Tap drill size = 0.8 * Outer diameter of the threads

WORKING PRINCIPLE

The tapping process is activated using a multi point cutting tool

called “TAP”. The Tap is held in the main spindle with the help of

collect Chuck / Drill chuck. The spindle gets its drive power from the

motor by means of the V-belt. The travel of the “TAP” over the entire

thickness of the work piece is obtained by Rack and Pinion

arrangement. In this machine the friction cone mechanism is employed.

This consists of three cones one fiber cone and two mild steel cones.

They are in such a way that two cones engage at a tune. The fiber cone

is held in the main drive shaft and two MS cones are held in main

vertical spindle.
 In the initial stage the upper MS cone is engaged with fiber cone

due to its self weight. As the power supply is given the spindle rotates

in the anti clockwise direction. The component to be tapped is placed in

the table and it is aligned accordingly. Slots are provided for holding

the work piece accurately. When the work piece is loaded on the tool,

the lower MS cone engage with the fiber cone and simultaneously

upper MS cone disengages, and thus clockwise rotation of the spindle is

obtained. The speed required for tapping is around 100rpm. After the

component is being tapped loading is stopped, the lable assembly is

bought down engaging upper cone with the fiber cone and hence the tap

reverses, finishing the operation. If the material is hard the cone slips

and breakage of the tap is avoided which is the salient feature of this

machine.

PROCESS

The process is activated using a multi point cutting tool called

“Drill”. The Drill is held in the main spindle by a collate Chuck / Drill

Chuck. The Spindle gets its drive power from the motor by means of

‘V’ Belt. The travel of the “Drill” over the entire thickness of the work

piece is achieved by the movement of the Rack and Pinion. In this

machine we made use of reversing switch in order to attain the anti –

Clockwise Rotation of the spindle. Initially, the upper cone is engaged

with Fiber cone. Thus rotating in clockwise direction as the work piece

is loaded the lower cone engages with the fiber cone and hence, the

Anti Clockwise rotation of the spindle is obtained. The spindle speed

requires for the operation is around 1000 rpm.

ADVANTAGES

The following are the advantages of this machine:-

1. Minimum number of components, so the maintenance of the

machine is easier.

2. No skilled operators are required.

3. Enables high production rate.

4. The machine is less expensive.

5. Consumes less floor area.

6. Noiseless and smooth in operation.

7. Breakage of tool is avoided by slipping of cone.

8. The machine is auto reversible.

MATERIAL CURRENT POSITION

1. Shaft key given to our lathe.

2. Worm Shaft and Worm Wheel Gear given to our lathe.

MATERIAL COST

S.No. Name of Parts Material Cost in Rs.

1. Worm Shaft Mild Steel 200.00
2. Worm Wheel Cart Iron 250.00
TAPPING MACHINE