High Performance Taps vs. HSS Standard Taps. Which is Right for Your Job?
If it is true that a workman is only as good as his tools, high-speed steel threading taps have created some of the greatest craftspeople the world has ever seen. Tough, hard, and wear resistant, these industry workhorses helped transform manufacturing, construction, automotive, aerospace, and many other industries in the wake of the Industrial Revolution. They continue to nobly serve industry, providing quality, fast, efficient threads day in and day out. But as industry continues to find new uses for hard and exotic materials, the need for even better tool materials has kept pace. There are increasingly broad areas where high-speed steel taps cannot compete with the technologically-advanced chemistry, geometry, and engineering of high performance taps. Standard high-speed steel and high performance taps both are essential tools in the modern metal shop, but each is best used in specific applications that make the most of their strengths.
Standard High-Speed Steel Taps
High-speed steel is a carbon steel that alloys with other certain metals to manufacture tools with specific characteristics:
- Strength
- Hardness
- Hot hardness
- Abrasion resistance
While it adds to tool life, there is a significant additional cost when adding the alloy metals. This is because these elements are uncommon and often mined outside the United States. High-speed steel taps are ideal for softer materials, including soft steels, cast iron (especially when subjected to nitride and oxide treatments), copper, magnesium, and alloy steels below 32Rc. Standard High-Speed Steel taps are manufactured with a geometry that is not optimum for a specific material but generally will work over a wide range of materials.
High Performance Taps
Precise powder metallurgy and specific advanced geometry give high performance taps several significant advantages over standard taps. Building the high-performance taps from a selection of high vanadium, cobalt or tungsten-based materials, the high-performance tap can be optimized to give ultimate performance while tapping today’s high tensile strength materials. The addition of the powdered metallurgy process creates a steel that has a finer grain structure that has better wear, chip resistance and overall strength characteristics that can be tailored for threading specific exotic materials including nickel alloys such as Inconel, Hastalloy and Waspalloy, titanium alloys including 6AL4V and various high strength alloy steels such as A-286, 4140, 4340 and 8620 steels. Most high performance taps feature thicker cores for added strength and engineered thread reliefs that reduce contact between the flanks of the thread lands and the workpiece, keeping friction to a minimum. Their design creates less torque in the tapping process so the tensile strength of the steel is not exceeded, thus eliminating tool breakage. Helix angles are optimized so chips can be quickly removed and coolant can reach the cutting face to keep the tools cooler.
SuperTuf Threading Taps
Regal Cutting Tools takes high performance threading taps to the next level. With proprietary powder metal technology providing a uniform micro grain structure with advanced alloying materials, SuperTuf taps are one of the hardest, most abrasive resistant , heat-resistant high performance taps on the market. The secret is building specialized taps for specific applications. Regal’s research and development technicians found that specific proportions of different metal powders are required to machine modern high tensile materials. Regal’s ultrafine PMX particle grains combined with specific cutting geometries create the ultimate tools for tapping stainless steel, nickel and titanium alloys, and other difficult-to-machine materials.
SuperTuf taps are superior to other high performance tap competitors in several ways:
- Five material-specific geometries are available in standard machine screw, fractional, and metric sizes, for perfect through and blind holes.
- Computer-aided flute and point designs create best-in-class shear cutting action for difficult to machine materials.
- Meticulous hook, rake, and relief angles designed to match each workpiece material lends uniformity to each thread.
- Consistent chamfer, cutting face angles and thread reliefs provide unparalleled edge support, controlling chipping.
- Micro-finishing on all SuperTuf taps under one inch eliminates microchips around the cutting edges and resists wear.
Whether you need high speed steel standard taps, SuperTuf taps, or any other threading tap, Regal has the high-quality taps and cutting tools you need for your job. Contact Regal’s experts for recommendations on the right tap for your application based thread specifications and the material to be tapped.