Drill America DWT54455 1/4-20 UNC High Speed Steel Bottoming Tap, (Pack of 1)

I have bought and used a lot of DA HSS taps and have had good luck with them and I am hoping this is a one off on the one I just got. I was tapping a blind hole in a piece of brass and had already tapped the hole with a plug tap and then planned to use the DA bottoming tap to finish it off, as soon as the tap started to get resistance to finish off the last couple of threads is snapped like a dry twig, this was in a lathe and using a spring guide to keep it straight so there was no side load and all done by hand power. Im giving it a three star rating just because of my past experiences with DA taps and hoping that I dont run into this again.

Only used once so far, used to clean up a thread for my snowblower.

Great product, fair price love it.

I had an antique made of cast iron and had several crusted shut or heavily rusted bolt holes. I bought this tap in the 1/2-12 size. It opened, chased and rethreaded all the holes without skipping a beat. I locked the tap in a pair of Vise Grip pliers and turned slowly. It cut right through the rust first pass and brought those 80 year old bolt holes back to life. I was really impressed with the quality of the tap for the price.

I thought the purpose of a bottoming tap was to thread a blind hole to the bottom. How is that possible when the tap has a point that extends beyond the threads 3/16 of an inch? I have to grind the tips off to make them a true bottoming tap.

The pedal on my daughters bike got boogered up, and when trying to take it off, the threads were damaged. I didnt have any other way of fixing, so I was going to replace her bike. This little purchase saved me 100 bucks. Worked great.

Ive gotten a few of these from Drill America as well as some other brands...some are clearly the same manufacturer and some are different. The ones from Drill America are quite inconsistent in varying aspects. The steel is a decent hss, not the cruddy low quality M50 type, so thats good. For this tiny M2 bottoming tap the teeth are ground well and the tip looks good. About 11mm of depth with a taper up to the shank. The square flats are a little rough but once again they flubbed the heel. Its chamfered but not to a point, nor is there an indent on the flat. This makes it hard to use a follower and with very small taps like this, you really should use a follower/guide to ensure that you are plumb with the hole. Failure to do so almost guarantees tap breakage (true for large taps as well but you have a lot more room for error there, generally). Id say if you need standard quality, pay the difference and get a good tap. These are not terrible, though, and they are a LOT better than the junk that comes from many vendors or in those watchmaker tap kits (stay away from those unless youre spending big bucks on a set). I got the 3pc M2.5 set on this order as well, and that was a small disappointment but again, theyre ok.

Needed a bottoming tap for a hole that needed to be fairly shallow. After running the regular tap in and out, I followed up with this one and all was perfect. Arrived quickly and works great. May not need again for a while but I know its there when I do.

Excellent product

Great product, fair price love it.