Screw tap & die question.

[MajorPayne]

Heya guys and girls

This is a bit of a silly question but I've never done this before and I wont be doing this work for a while yet but I'm trying to figure out the tooling required so I can equate for it in the near future.

See I'm going to be building some road bicycle frames using three types of materials depending on the customer but in the past most of this kind of work was already undertaken by other companies, so we had the parts provided and well, welded them into what you would call a frame.

The three materials I will be working with are:
:Stainless Steel
:Aluminium
:Titanium

Apart from the materials the sizing is about the same on each bar a few little things like length of frame, here in the image[far bottom] you will see the bottom bracket and it has internal screw threading from reading this is completed using a tool called a 'tap' the 'die' is used for external threading, now from searching around these 'taps' & 'die's' which are in common usage seem to be more geared towards M style nut & bolt sizing which I don't find funny because their quite common.

But with the work I will be undertaking the pipes diameter is 40mm and the wall on the 308-steel is 3mm, here's the easy part after all the junk I've written so far[getting to the point] does anyone know how I would go about copying this process? The tooling required?

I was thinking, using a Lathe with the 'tap' of required size is my thinking process off by some marks? Leading my brain up the wrong road here?

All help would be awesome and as I've mentioned I don't have the tooling at the moment because first I need to find out the proper process to get the job done and it's preparations for the future.

Very kind regards,
MajorPayne

P.S: Heres the image of what I am going on about if I've lost anyone.

P.P.S: here's a link to some of my other things I've been doing this week or so the tinypic site is new to me and it's all testing as I need a more online place to put some of my stuff and it's good to be able to upload and then share things with others http://tinypic.com/2mpjzpsp

 

[HasBean]

Don't take this as gospel and I don't want to confuse matters (though it probably will) but from when I worked with bikes all the threads were BSC (British Standard Cycle)
All 26 TPI but with a 60 Deg included thread angle (not to be confused with BSB, British Standard Brass, also 26 TPI but with a 55 Deg whitworth thread form)
At the moment I'm about to do up a bike for my daughter which she was given and so far all the measurements are imperial.

To cut threads as in your pics you'd undoubtably need to drill the tapping size concentricly so some form of jig would be needed, which could also be an aid to tapping (and possibly help in the external thread forms)

My boss is into cycling (going to France every other weekend), I'll have speaks with him if it'd help.

Paul

 

[hotrodder]

Bicycles have their own thread form... BSC. Bottom bracket shells can be bought (already threaded) from framebuilding suppliers like Ceeway although they will need chasing and facing off after fabrication. Again frambuilding suppliers sell tools for threading and facing operations although the taps and cutters themselves may be cheaper from somewhere that specialises in machining cutter supply

There is some benefit to leaving thread cutting until after fabrication but cutting threads of that size in 6/4 (or even 3/2.5) Ti from scratch is going to need some kit

Edit: must refresh page before posting

 

[MajorPayne]

Don't take this as gospel and I don't want to confuse matters (though it probably will) but from when I worked with bikes all the threads were BSC (British Standard Cycle)
All 26 TPI but with a 60 Deg included thread angle (not to be confused with BSB, British Standard Brass, also 26 TPI but with a 55 Deg whitworth thread form)
At the moment I'm about to do up a bike for my daughter which she was given and so far all the measurements are imperial.

To cut threads as in your pics you'd undoubtably need to drill the tapping size concentricly so some form of jig would be needed, which could also be an aid to tapping (and possibly help in the external thread forms)

My boss is into cycling (going to France every other weekend), I'll have speaks with him if it'd help.

Paul

Bicycles have their own thread form... BSC. Bottom bracket shells can be bought (already threaded) from framebuilding suppliers like Ceeway although they will need chasing and facing off after fabrication. Again frambuilding suppliers sell tools for threading and facing operations although the taps and cutters themselves may be cheaper from somewhere that specialises in machining cutter supply

There is some benefit to leaving thread cutting until after fabrication but cutting threads of that size in 6/4 (or even 3/2.5) Ti from scratch is going to need some kit

Edit: must refresh page before posting

Heya fellas,

Thanks very much for the awesome replies and advice to my thread!
All taken into consideration very well and thanks for the link provided to the company that provides almost all the parts to cycles individually made, by the looks of things I can buy bottom brackets in Ti from them which would indeed make my like allot easier until I could either find the tooling and tools to complete the job myself.

I'm going to email these guys and ask some questions about their materials and what not and see what kind of a reply I get back on the subject of making my own bottom brackets and other components I could have supplied to me from them 7005Alu is what my current frame is made from and it has a megatube I'd really like to be able to change that sort of a design feature. But I'm not sure about the strength of the frame afterwards

Thanks again fellas for being well informed and knowledgeable on the subject
Very kind regards,
MajorPayne

 

[hareng]

Confirm that 1" brass threads similar and same TPI take some doing by hand, looking at many an hour to thread one hole 1 3/4" deep in a Myford with spanner round the jaws.
Also to get 40 o/d down you will need a large lathe along the lines of Colchester Triumph, Students not big enough.

If you have your own assemblies going in to these threaded holes why not go for metric and 1mm pitch, even the yanks are going that way. Easy to work out 29mm bore would then be M30x1 and as such 34mm bore you would need M35x1 tap. Dead easy to cut steel and stainless, titanium funny stuff.
Traacey Tools stock a good range of 1mm taps and dies but bought a fair few from JLS when on offer 7 years ago.

 

[MajorPayne]

Confirm that 1" brass threads similar and same TPI take some doing by hand, looking at many an hour to thread one hole 1 3/4" deep in a Myford with spanner round the jaws.
Also to get 40 o/d down you will need a large lathe along the lines of Colchester Triumph, Students not big enough.

If you have your own assemblies going in to these threaded holes why not go for metric and 1mm pitch, even the yanks are going that way. Easy to work out 29mm bore would then be M30x1 and as such 34mm bore you would need M35x1 tap. Dead easy to cut steel and stainless, titanium funny stuff.
Traacey Tools stock a good range of 1mm taps and dies but bought a fair few from JLS when on offer 7 years ago.

Heya mate

Thanks for a reply to my thread, if only I had popped back a few Min's later I would have added you to my last reply! Maybe it's a case of I need to refresh the page before posting like one of the other lads mentioned only 20mins or so ago

Thanks very much for the guidance and information on the subject I will definitely be looking into that as I would really like to be able to produce my own, although it's not large scale like the other company I would like to be able to build up to a self sufficiency role.. It's a goal at the end of the day and I might be able to keep costs down a little
I'll look into Tracy tools and JLS on google and see what I can come up with.

Thanks again for replying to my thread, on threads matey
Very kind regards,
MajorPayne