Drills, Reamers, Taps and Dies
In addition to the larger machine tools and the simple hand tools previously described, an essential item of equipment of any engine or plane repair shop, even in cases where the ordinary machine tools are not provided, is a complete outfit of drills, reamers, and threading tools. Drills are of two general classes, the flat and the twist drills. The flat drill has an angle between cutting edges of about 110 degrees and is usually made from special steel commercially known as drill rod.
A flat drill cannot be fed into the work very fast because it removes metal by a scraping, rather than a cutting process. The twist drill in its simplest form is cylindrical throughout the entire length and has spiral flutes which are ground off at the end to form the cutting lip and which also serve to carry the metal chips out of the holes. The simplest form of twist drill used is shown at Fig. 168, C, and is known as a “chuck” drill, because it must be placed in a suitable chuck to turn it. A twist drill removes metal by cutting and it is not necessary to use a heavy feed as the drill will tend to feed itself into the work.
Larger drills than 3⁄4-inch are usually made with a tapered shank as shown at Fig. 168, B. At the end of the taper a tongue is formed which engages with a suitable opening in the collet, as the piece used to support the drill is called. The object of this tongue is to relieve the tapered portion of the drill from the stress of driving by frictional contact alone, as this would not turn the drill positively and the resulting slippage would wear the socket, this depreciation changing the taper and making it unfit for other drills. The tongue is usually proportioned so it is adequate to drive the drill under any condition. A small keyway is provided in the collet into which a tapering key of flat stock may be driven against the end of the tongue to drive the drill from the spindle. A standard taper for drill shanks generally accepted by the machine trade is known as the Morse and is a taper of five-eighths of an inch to the foot. The Brown and Sharp form tapers six-tenths of an inch to the foot. Care must be taken, therefore, when purchasing drills and collets, to make sure that the tapers coincide, as no attempt should be made to run a Morse taper in a Brown and Sharp collet, or vice versa.
Sometimes cylindrical drills have straight flutes, as outlined at Fig. 168, A. Such drills are used with soft metals and are of value when the drill is to pass entirely through the work. The trouble with a drill with spiral flutes is that it will tend to draw itself through as the cutting lips break through. This catching of the drill may break it or move the work from its position. With a straight flute drill the cutting action is practically the same as with the flat drill shown at Fig. 168, E and F.
If a drill is employed in boring holes through close-grained, tough metals, as wrought or malleable iron and steel, the operation will be facilitated by lubricating the drill with plenty of lard oil or a solution of soda and water. Either of these materials will effectually remove the heat caused by the friction of the metal removed against the lips of the drill, and the danger of heating the drill to a temperature that will soften it by drawing the temper is minimized. In drilling large or deep holes it is good practice to apply the lubricating medium directly at the drill point. Special drills of the form shown at Fig. 168, B, having a spiral oil tube running in a suitably formed channel, provides communication between the point of the drill and a suitable receiving hole on a drilled shank. The oil is supplied by a pump and its pressure not only promotes positive circulation and removal of heat, but also assists in keeping the hole free of chips. In drilling steel or wrought iron, lard oil applied to the point of the drill will facilitate the drilling, but this material should never be used with either brass or cast iron.
The sizes to be provided depend upon the nature of the work and the amount of money that can be invested in drills. It is common practice to provide a set of drills, such as shown at Fig. 169, which are carried in a suitable metal stand, these being known as number drills on account of conforming to the wire gauge standards. Number drills do not usually run higher than 5⁄16 inch in diameter. Beyond this point drills are usually sold by the diameter. A set of chuck drills, ranging from 3⁄8 to 3⁄4 inch, advancing by 1⁄32 inch, and a set of Morse taper shank drills ranging from 3⁄4 to 11⁄4 inches, by increments of 1⁄16 inch, will be all that is needed for the most pretentious repair shop, as it is cheaper to bore holes larger than 11⁄4 inches with a boring tool than it is to carry a number of large drills in stock that would be used very seldom, perhaps not enough to justify their cost.
In grinding drills, care must be taken to have the lips of the same length, so that they will form the same angle with the axis. If one lip is longer than the other, as shown in the flat drill at Fig. 168, E, the hole will be larger than the drill size, and all the work of cutting will come upon the longest lip. The drill ends should be symmetrical, as shown at Fig. 168, F.
It is considered very difficult to drill a hole to an exact diameter, but for the most work a variation of a few thousandths of an inch is of no great moment. Where accuracy is necessary, holes must be reamed out to the required size. In reaming, a hole is drilled about 1⁄32 inch smaller than is required, and is enlarged with a cutting tool known as the reamer. Reamers are usually of the fluted form shown at Fig. 170, A. Tools of this nature are not designed to remove considerable amounts of metal, but are intended to augment the diameter of the drill hole by only a small fraction of an inch. Reamers are tapered slightly at the point in order that they will enter the hole easily, but the greater portion of the fluted part is straight, all cutting edges being parallel. Hand reamers are made in either the straight or taper forms, that at A, Fig. 170, being straight, while B has tapering flutes. They are intended to be turned by a wrench similar to that employed in turning a tap, as shown at Fig. 172, C. The reamer shown at Fig. 170, C, is a hand reamer. The form at D has spiral flutes similar to a twist drill, and as it is provided with a taper shank it is intended to be turned by power through the medium of a suitable collet.
As the solid reamers must become reduced in size when sharpened, various forms of inserted blade reamers have been designed. One of these is shown at E, and as the cutting surfaces become reduced in diameter it is possible to replace the worn blades with others of proper size. Expanding reamers are of the form shown at F. These have a bolt passing through that fits into a tapering hole in the interior of the split reamer portion of the tool. If the hole is to be enlarged a few thousandths of an inch, it is possible to draw up on the nut just above the squared end of the shank, and by drawing the tapering wedge farther into the reamer body, the cutting portion will be expanded and will cut a larger hole.
Reamers must be very carefully sharpened or there will be a tendency toward chattering with a consequent production of a rough surface. There are several methods of preventing this chattering, one being to separate the cutting edges by irregular spaces, while the most common method, and that to be preferred on machine reamers, is to use spiral flutes, as shown at Fig. 170, D. Special taper reamers are made to conform to the various taper pin sizes which are sometimes used in holding parts together in an engine. A taper of 1⁄16 inch per foot is intended for holes where a pin, once driven in, is to remain in place. When it is desired that the pin be driven out, the taper is made steeper, generally 1⁄4 inch per foot, which is the standard taper used on taper pins.
When threads are to be cut in a small hole, it will be apparent that it will be difficult to perform this operation economically on a lathe, therefore when internal threading is called for, a simple device known as a “tap” is used. There are many styles of taps, all conforming to different standards. Some are for metric or foreign threads, some conform to the American standards, while others are used for pipe and tubing. Hand taps are the form most used in repair shops, these being outlined at Fig. 171, A and B. They are usually sold in sets of three, known respectively as taper, plug, and bottoming. The taper tap is the one first put into the hole, and is then followed by the plug tap which cuts the threads deeper. If it is imperative that the thread should be full size clear to the bottom of the hole, the third tap of the set, which is straight-sided, is used. It would be difficult to start a bottoming tap into a hole because it would be larger in diameter at its point than the hole. The taper tap, as shown at A, Fig. 171, has a portion of the cutting lands ground away at the point in order that it will enter the hole. The manipulation of a tap is not hard, as it does not need to be forced into the work, as the thread will draw it into the hole as the tap is turned. The tapering of a tap is done so that no one thread is called upon to remove all of the metal, as for about half way up the length of the tap each succeeding thread is cut a little larger by the cutting edge until the full thread enters the hole. Care must be taken to always enter a tap straight in order to have the thread at correct angles to the surface.
In cutting external threads on small rods or on small pieces, such as bolts and studs, it is not always economical to do this work in the lathe, especially in repair work. Dies are used to cut threads on pieces that are to be placed in tapped holes that have been threaded by the corresponding size of tap. Dies for small work are often made solid, as shown at Fig. 171, C, but solid dies are usually limited to sizes below 1⁄2 inch. Sometimes the solid die is cylindrical in shape, with a slot through one side which enables one to obtain a slight degree of adjustment by squeezing the slotted portion together. Large dies, or the sizes over 1⁄2 inch, are usually made in two pieces in order that the halves may be closed up or brought nearer together. The advantage of this form of die is that either of the two pieces may be easily sharpened, and as it may be adjusted very easily the thread may be cut by easy stages. For example, the die may be adjusted to cut large, which will produce a shallow thread that will act as an accurate guide when the die is closed up and a deeper thread cut.
A common form of die holder for an adjustable die is shown at Fig. 172, A. As will be apparent, it consists of a central body portion having guide members to keep the die pieces from falling out and levers at each end in order to permit the operator to exert sufficient force to remove the metal. The method of adjusting the depth of thread with a clamp screw when a two-piece die is employed is also clearly outlined. The diestock shown at B is used for the smaller dies of the one-piece pattern, having a slot in order that they may be closed up slightly by the clamp screw. The reverse side of the diestock shown at B is outlined below it, and the guide pieces, which may be easily moved in or out, according to the size of the piece to be threaded by means of eccentrically disposed semi-circular slots in the adjustment plate, are shown. These movable guide members have small pins let into their surface which engage the slots, and they may be moved in or out, as desired, according to the position of the adjusting plate. The use of the guide pieces makes for accurate positioning or centering of the rod to be threaded. Dies are usually sold in sets, and are commonly furnished as a portion of a complete outfit such as outlined at Fig. 173. That shown has two sizes of diestock, a tap wrench, eight assorted dies, eight assorted taps, and a small screw driver for adjusting the die. An automobile repair shop should be provided with three different sets of taps and dies, as three different standards for the bolts and nuts are used in fastening automobile components. These are the American, metric (used on foreign engines), and the S. A. E. standard threads. A set of pipe dies and taps will also be found useful.