[k_turner]

hi all, We make many carbon fibre components, some with around 80 tapped holes blind and through in a range of sizes. these are currently thread milled with ticn-coated treadmills.
This works well but is very very time consuming keep adjusting cutter comp to size them.
~Also puts all the pressure on the machinist to keep adjusting cutter comp as you know one digit wrong and the part is scrap. One of our ops is around 30 mins to run the whole thread milling program, then adjust and re-run, hours of work...

Are there any taps out there for rigid tapping in carbon fibre that produce a good thread and not de-laminate the top few layers of carbon.
We have tried with many different taps but find they always slightly de-laminate the top skin, on safety critical areas in our industry this is not acceptable.


any help or experience would be great

[ToolHIT]

Unfortunately, there are not taps out that designed to hold up in Carbon Fiber that I know of. The best option is to Thread Mill. A TICN Coated or TIALN Coated Thread Mill will work to cut the Threads but you are correct, they will wear and you will need to comp them out frequently. There are Amorphous Diamond Coated Thread Mills available that will provide better wear resistance over a TICN Coated Thread Mill and would give better tool life (less cutter comps). These are just single point cutters but it would help tool life.

If you would like more information on these let me know. Sorry we don't have a good tap option.

Thanks!

Mike

[awerby]

Ever try using threaded inserts? It seems a lot easier. https://www.mcmaster.com/inserts/for...~carbon-fiber/

[peteeng]

Hi - If you make the component have you tried moulding the thread in? I have done this on some simple parts but as I do not know what your doing it may make the laying up difficult. Essentially you have a threaded element sticking through the mould at the required place, then prior to demoulding remove these and then demould. same process as having a threaded insert or moulded thread in a plastic part. Have to rethink the cloth cutting to include holes or you can screw the thread through the cloth so fibres are not broken again depends on your processing (dry layup. prepreg, wet layup etc)... Peter

[joeavaerage]

Hi,
how long does a HSS tap last? If it lasts long enough and the tap cheap enough does it work out cheaper than what you are doing presently?

Craig