What are the different types of thread taps?

According to a different drive: hand taps and machine taps.

Machine taps usually refer to high-speed steel taps with high manufacturing precision. The machine taps are suitable for tapping on machine tools;
Hand taps refer to carbon tool steel or alloy tool steel rolling (or incisor) taps, suitable for manual tapping.

According to the processing method: thread cutting taps and forming taps.

According to the threads to be processed: metric thread taps, metric fine thread taps, and pipe thread taps.

According to its shape, it is divided into straight flute taps, spiral fluted taps, and spiral point taps.

According to standards: DIN taps, ISO taps, JIS taps, and ANSI taps.

According to the material: ordinary HSS taps, cobalt taps, and carbide taps.

In this article, HKTools will explain more about the following thread tap types: straight flute taps, fluted spiral taps, spiral point taps, and forming taps.

1.Straight Flute Taps

Straight flute taps are the most commonly used type of thread tap. The Straight taps are made of high-hardness materials such as high-speed steel and cemented carbide. Straight flute taps can have 2, 4, and 6 teeth in the cutting cone. The cutting speed is slower. The long shank straight flute tap is used for through holes, and the short shank Straight taps are used for blind holes.

2.Spiral Flute Taps

Spiral flute taps are mostly used for drilling blind holes in CNC machining centers. Spiral flute taps are divided into left-hand spiral flute taps, and right-hand spiral flute taps are mainly developed to solve deep hole thread tapping. The “deep hole” here refers to a threaded hole with a depth-to-diameter ratio> 2. According to different working conditions, different spiral angles are used. The common ones are 15° and 42° right-handed.

3. Spiral Point Taps

Spiral point taps are also called tip taps, characterized by opening a wedge-shaped groove on the head of the straight flute tap, changing the cutting cone’s shape, and the chips are discharged forward cutting. It is suitable for through-hole thread and deep thread tapping.

4.Forming Taps

Forming taps are a kind of chipless processing technology that uses metal forming to process internal threads, called screw taps.

Unlike the above three cutting taps, the tapping method of forming taps is to extrude the bottom hole’s internal thread shape through the plastic deformation of the material itself. Therefore, the target processing material cannot be too hard.