Thread: You know that sound???

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That little squeiching noise that you hear just before you snap off a TAP! Yea, it happened today

While putting a March accessory drive on my engine today I snapped a 3/8" tap off in the head. OOOOOHHHHH SH********T!!!!!

Worked at it a bit with a small, 3/16", carbide bur enough to get the ends cleaned up. There was a small piece sticking out so I tried the welding a 3/8 nut to it trick. No dice, it snapped right off. Now it's below the surface!

Hustled down to the guy that sharpens my blades who also sells tools. Asked for whatever broken tap extraction tools he had. He had some smaller carbide burs in case I had to cut it out. He also had a Walton Tap Extractor. Back at the shop I cleaned up the end of the tap so I could identify each of the 4 flutes in the tap.

Positioned the Walton tool into the broken tap and tapped the pins into place. Got my torch out and slowly heated the head around the hole. At first it did nothing. I sprayed some Blaster in and waited a while. Heated the head again and slowly, it began to back out.

All in all it took about an hour. BOY WAS I HAPPY!!!