Made the mistake of watching Keith's Youtube channel

[John Ranalletta]

Accidentally clicked on this guy's channel and spent more time watching his vids than I've spent watching the best movie Oscar nominees. He's a genius; and, if you're into machining, bring a lunch.

 

This edition is titled,

[Glenn Reed]

Wow. I know I'll never have the tools necessary to accomplish something like that, but I find it interesting to watch someone who knows their stuff take on a task and get it done.

 

Oh, and my boss thanks you for the half hour of unproductive time I just spent, at least from his point of view! (I watched part one and part two...)

[Joe Frickin' Friday]

In our machine shop at work we have a tap disintegrator for such jobs. Basically it lowers an electrode slowly into your busted tap, and high-voltage arc discharge erodes it, just like a spark plug with 200K miles on it - except taps aren't generally made of iridium, so they erode much more quickly than a spark plug. Eventually the electrode destroys the entire length of the tap, but it doesn't have to go out to the full width of the tap - it only needs to reach out as far as the tap's flutes. Once the electrode is withdrawn, the thread-cutting areas of the tap, now existing as three or four separate pieces (depending on whether the tap had three or four flutes) fall into the middle of the hole and slide out, leaving your threads unblemished, and your expensive prototype part still salvageable.

[Glenn Reed]

Mitch,

 

I didn't think he was trying to get rid of a tap, but in the first case it was a bolt which still had some material left above the opening, and in the second case it was a bolt which had a broken Ez-Out embedded in it, below the surface of the opening.

 

Would your tap disintegrator still work in these cases?

 

Glenn

[Joe Frickin' Friday]

I didn't think he was trying to get rid of a tap, but in the first case it was a bolt which still had some material left above the opening, and in the second case it was a bolt which had a broken Ez-Out embedded in it, below the surface of the opening.

 

Would your tap disintegrator still work in these cases?

 

Sure. Welding a nut onto the stub of that bolt was probably the best solution for that, but for the busted EZ-Out, the tap disintegrator would have worked well. The only challenge would be getting rid of the rest of the bolt remnant without damaging the casting threads. If you do eat up the threads with the disintegrator, you can always overdrill and install a thread insert.

 

That turbocharger was a unique situation in which the problem was near an exposed surface that he could access with a grinder. Depending on what item is trying to be saved, that might not always be an option.

[John Ranalletta]

Likely a function of what he can afford and what he can charge. After all, the US Treasury isn't backing his play.

[Joe Frickin' Friday]

Likely a function of what he can afford and what he can charge. After all, the US Treasury isn't backing his play.

 

We may be backed by Uncle Sam, but our shop doesn't have the latest and greatest stuff. We have some basic CNC capabilities, and a few years ago we bought a waterjet cutter that stays pretty busy making custom brackets and such. But for anything requiring advanced techniques or high precision, we send it out to one of the private shops in the area. Laser cutting, precision grinding, diamond-grit hydrohoning, exotic coatings - that sort of thing requires high-dollar capabilities we definitely don't have...

[chrisd]

I'm pretty much speechless after watching that. How can he grind on the body without sealing off all the ports? I wouldn't feel comfortable taking things like that to him.