Back in the early 80's, a friend of mine was a machinist and I had asked why he used Chinese taps. He said, have you ever tried to get a broken American tap out?

Thanks for the broken tap extraction tutorial. This has allowed me to not only remove a broken tap, but in rapid order allow me to break off a new one.

When I break a tap at work usually use a ball endmill big enough to peck out the center. At home I just cuss at it for 12 hours till it's annoyed into vacating the hole.

AvE: " some of my viewers are upset about my racist comments" AvE seconds later: " there's many ways to skin a cat..... especially if your Chinese" lmao

As one of my old NCOs used to say, "I'm not prejudiced; I hate everyone."

I had a German foreman who never gave a cheapo cutting tool to anyone. Bless that man.

As a tool and die machinist with 30 years experience, I have found it to be more practical when drilling out taps with carbide, to use a drill bit that is just under the size of the body of the tap. So that you drill a hole inside the body of the tap without breaking through the sidewalls. That way the tap remains one piece in shape and does not have much chance of breaking your drill bit. Then all it takes is a couple of taps with a punch and the pieces will fall out of the hole. I do love this channel and fine that this guy has a wealth of knowledge and a sense of humor to match.

I broke a tungsten carbide tap below the surface. I used cheap diamond-tipped Dremel bits to cut between the flutes of the tap and it came out easily. Just follow the precaution of cutting in 30 second intervals and allow for the bit to cool before going back in so the diamond tip doesn't overheat and separate from the shaft.

im chinese and I frankly find the comments hilarious and entertaining. screw the pc movement.

Now that is how KZfaq videos should be. Good information, delivered in an easily watchable, irreverent and entertaining way. Well done sir, I just subscribed.

"that German that's only spoken by people with a throat disease... Dutch" As a Belgian, I can tell you this was hilarious!!

This has aged so nicely

I only watch this channel because i need to learn more slurs

Chinese taps are great man. How else would you tap plastic?

Stumbled upon this vid while searching for hardened steel drilling advice. I found this very informative and watched to the end. Great video and love your sense of humor.

"Just chill out, everything's gonna be ok". 👍👍 i love this guy. Too many sensitive ppl in the world these days. You do you buddy. Keep up the badass video's

A lot of this guy's appeal is a man talking to men about manly things in a manly way. Hell yeah.

I don't know if this helps stop tap breaking, but when I trained with the R.A.F. in the 60's they taught us to always use a good cutting lubricant, (I think we used tallow then). Also once you have the tap well started you should wind forwards one turn, back half turn and then forwards again. This breaks the cut metal swart into short strips so they don't block the hole so much. For aluminium alloys, back out the tap frequently or the swarf will accumulate, re-melt in the hole and fuse or jam the tap. Also, use a taper tap to start and then a plug to finish. A broken tap should be very rare in your workshop especially if you are drilling the correct size hole. Sorry if you already know all this stuff, but I see a lot of youngsters who don't.

When i break a tap into steel, i heat it until it’s red hot with the oxyacetylene torch, let it cool down slowly to unharden the steel and once it’s cold, i drill through with a normal drill bit.

“When you make a Dunder headed mistake and lose an arm, Atleast the safety guy can see you got safety glasses on” never related to a joke more in my life hahaha

I want to send a donation! Finally, someone with a sense of humor, unafraid of the PC police.

Shouldn't Step 0.5 have been to use a left-handed twist drill, followed by an EZ-Out? (Which is then followed by the video on how to remove an EZ-Out that has snapped off while trying to remove a tap...)

My old timer foreman once used a blow torch with the fine flame tip after warming it up to cherry glowing bright, he hit the oxygen lever at the exact perfect moment with the flame at a perfect angle and with accuracy and precision and blew away the broken tap from the hole with minimal collateral damage to the hole like magic.

My fiancé and I love your channel: she translated the "Gwuy Lo" and "Chow Hi" comment, we laughed our butts off.

I work part time for a foreigner, we were talking about fixing something on a Sprinter van, and I said "there's more than one way to skin a cat", he said "what the F%@K does that's have to do with this,", ?? 😆😆

Don't change anything just keep doing what you are doing !!! :) the sensitive ones can go cry in the corner :) P.S I totally agree with you on the China crappy producer front !! :)

Most interesting bit was how fast the brake works on your mill, it went from speed to dead stop in like 1 second. That is very damn impressive. Surprising how well the burr did against the tap aswell

Welder: just gouge it out and fill it in then lets go for lunch in 10 minutes.

Having personally lived and worked in China for 12 years, all of your comments are accurate and on point. Keep up the great work!

I'm tired of your discriminatory race/color assumptions, my tap box is black not blue.....

I've adopted two feral dingo dogs from Taiwan over the last 15 years. They're actually really cool animals. Notably different from traditional Western domestic dogs. My first one was part lab and it was a cool mix with the dingo. He was the best dog I've ever met in my life. When he passed I had hundreds of people reach out to say how much they'd loved him. Dozens of whom I'd never even met. This was pre Instagram too, these were people that had met him in person while a friend was watching him and friends of my partner who'd met him while I was at work or gone for the day. My current one is a full blown dingo and almost acts more like a cat than a dog most of the time. She's very independent and not as social, but very sweet with the people she knows and trusts.

I learned this manly skill decades ago...I do find your presentation hilarious. I enjoy your stories and comments!

One thing good about the Chinese taps is, if you look carefully you can see the metal beginning to deform or twist just prior to the tap breaking. This is your warning to stop, back out the tap, flush the hole and pray, as you start trying it again. Sometimes I have had to stop and back out the tap a little about a dozen times in one hole before I completed the tap. You call the Chinese taps cheap when they are really just sensitive. Speaking of calling the Chinese names. A Chinese couple, The Wongs, moved to the US about a year before the couple's daughter was born. Something strange happened when the baby was born though. The baby girl was very dark complected. So, what did the Chinese man name his daughter? Answer: Som Ting Wong.

Due to youthful indiscretion there is right now, somewhere in the world, a piece of heavy machinery in operation that has a painted-over broken tap embedded in it.

I use a ballnose carbide endmill and drill a hole through centre. Make hole big enough that it just fits inside of flutes that way there is no interrupted cut to break ballnose. Once you drill out middle a solid hit with a chisel or punch will cause tap to shatter. Blow out and retap. This also saves existing thread.

Glad to see the carbide bur work out here. Had the same issue at work trying to tap out an 8mm hole for a Timesert and snapped off almost exactly as what you were working with. Tried almost all the same tricks and the carbide bur was what finally got it out.

I broke a tap in acid-proof stainless a couple of weeks ago, blind hole. I used a hammer, a sharpened center punch and some patience to extract it. Basically I just shattered the broken tap in the hole piece by piece with the punch

Now.. show me how to do it by hand under a car, and make it a crooked easyout stuffed into a 1/4-20 bolt that's in an aluminum block.

Ill forgive you for the high pitched whistle as it matched the frequency of my tinnitus haha

I really enjoy your channel. Recently a neighbor came over with a broken easyout trying to remove a broken bolt from a casting. We wore out some drill bits, when I remembered I bought a Rodman 1/4” universal drill bit from a truck show. It cut like that carbide burr.

As a mashinist, mostly working CNC mills, I like to keep some used up carbide endmills handy. You can use those on the drill press as demonstrated or write a quick little program (preferedly helical pocket, if your control allows for it, but drill pecking is ok too), to mill out the broken bit. If they breake it's no problem, since they weren't good for anything else anyway.

my god this guy has one hell of a man card, shit!

I've never had a broken tap I couldn't remove by shattering the tap with a punch, hammer and magnet. And, every tap I've broken was preceded by a boneheaded move of either not keeping the flutes clear, side loading because of some awkward position (maybe not boneheaded, unavoidable) or drilling a fastener off center and leaving behind pieces to dislodge and jam up the tap.

If you stick two drill bits in two opposing flute channels, you can usually walk those busted taps out with a crescent wrench on the two bits.

I TIG weld them out. Never been defeated. Gonna make a necklace.

Don't let the PC crowd shut you up... We love your videos and commentary!!!!

left hand drill bit (Snap-on) has often worked for me while following the same procedure.

Tap extractor!!! Like most tools, you need practice using them and need the right size to get good results using them. I've successfully used them for retrieving a broken #6-32 up to a 1/2-13 taps. Start by blowing as many chips out of the hole as possible then add oil or cutting fluid. Make sure you can get the get the extractor rods down through the flutes. (spiral flute you're SOL) Next slide the collar down as close to the break as possible. GENTLY coax the broken tap back and forward until it willingly backs out with little effort. Most of the machinists I've helped out never saw a tap extractor before.

A broken tap in a large heat sink like that one...just use a low acetylene torch flame and heat 'just the broken tap' to 'cherry red'...next & quickly...turn the acetylene off and hit the cherry red broken tap with full force oxygen from the torch...oh yeah, don't stand in front of it because it will come out of the hole like a volcano. Old School methods still work. Clean up the partially tapped hole and do it right the next time.

Another awesome vid man! Always enjoy watching you, and getting some good laughs in. Keep it up! Adam

Great vids fun and informative. One trick i use with those pesky broken taps is to grab a dull solid carbide end mill . run it at about 500 rpm. And just plunge thru the center of the tap. The end mill will melt the tap on its way thru past the tip of the tap. You may want to start off center on larger taps to brake thru one of the webs. Then just pick the rest of the tap pieces out. Just another way to skin that cat.

A STORY that only fellow tradesmen would appreciate: I began my career in 1972 at a trade school in upstate NY. I was sponsored by Alliance Mold Company (a branch of Alliance Tool and Die) so I had employment upon graduation. I served apprenticeships in moldmaking and toolmaking. My first day on the job I was working for an older moldmaker direct from Germany. His name was Gunther Buetnagel, or something very Nazi sounding, and he had that strong German accent. To say that I was intimidated would be a gross understatement. My first job was to take a mammoth ejector half (or, cover half...so many years later I forget which half got the waterlines) of a mold and hoist it to the equally mammoth radial drill. My assignment? To drill water lines. I soon discovered that this was the most dreaded job in all of Mold Making, and it was always given to first year apprentices. Well, I had never operated a chain hoist before, and I had no idea on how to maneuver the hoist hook into the eye bolt on the mold base. And, no one told me that the chain hoist had an override! This meant that as you pushed the button to move the hoist with block attached the momentum of the moving block was too great for the hoist to stop instantly. I found out the hard way. As I approached the radial drill I released the button but the block kept going. All that you saw were guys working in that area bailing out, and a huge block swinging from side to side, Eventually a journeyman showed me how to do this safely and I got the block fastened to the radial drill. I had to drill these incredibly deep holes all along the outer edge of the block, and they all had to intersect...in other words you had better drill straight. Long drills liked to wonder, and it took experience to keep the drill in line. Well, I had not yet developed this skill...I did not clear out the chips correctly as the flutes on the 3/4” diameter drill bit went below the surface. You guessed it. The drill bit broke deep into my first ever waterline! Disaster. On my first day. This drill had to come out. A mold must have waterlines to keep the steel cool during production. Of course I had no idea how to do this. Worse yet, I had to find Mr. Buetnagel and give him the exciting news. These old country moldmakers were hard ass. He told me to get that fucking metal out of the waterlines on his mold. And, not to bother him until all of the lines were in. “Now, leave me the fuck alone,” was his parting statement. I was fortunate to get help from some 4th year apprentices who understood my sorry situation. But, after many tries we just could not free the bit from the hole. It was too deep (probably 8”), and impossible to break free. The engineers had to design a different system, which meant changes in dimensions and new blueprints. You would think that after all of this that they would not let me anywhere near the block. It was not done like that back then. I was given instructions by Mr. Buetnagel not to bother him until the job was done. That meant getting back to the drilling! Well, I did not bother him (he was well aware of what had happened) and I passed this obvious test of my character. I learned. I got all of the waterlines in. Even though it took me much, much too long. It was a part of the initiation as a first year apprentice. The moral: I wish that we had you guys back then!

Needle nose pliers in opposing flutes and then vice grips on the jaws of the pliers and back up the tap. sometimes works.

There is an old gunsmiths' trick to broken taps, two of them, actually. The first is to get carbon steel ones, but good ones. There is one American company still making them, you can get them through Brownel's. The carbon steel taps are much more brittle than HSS, so you put a punch on the tap and give it a good wack and the tap will shatter into a million pieces, allowing you to fish them all out. The second is to grind a notch on the shank so that it breaks on the shank rather than in the teeth, giving you something to grab. Bonus: just buy a new tap for every project. I am aware of one gunsmith shop that charges the customer for a new tap if one is needed for that service. They are cheap compared to wasting your time getting a broken one out.

Power tool advice and good old family racism lmfao 😂 its like doing my apprenticeship all over again!! Much love big man lol

Stop discriminating!!! We need some Korean Slurs :)

cheap taps are only good for cleaning already tapped holes, i use them as an auto technician

Many years ago, I broke a tap off in an engine head just trying to clean the threads in the hole. Took the head to an EDM shop and they extracted the tap (burned it out) leafing the threads in the head clean as a whistle. Best $20 I ever spent!!!

I worked with an incredibly good but also incredibly alcoolic old machinist.Anyway once I broken a tap in a 2x2 inch by 3 ft long piece of mild steel.After looking at the thing,he proceeded to smack the thing around at various hard targets to eventually vibrate the little tap out of its hole.It worked.

That broken drill can be ground down and resharpened .

I know Carbide Burrs work extremly well. I had a broken easy out that no drill bits would touch. I got a carbide burr for my dremel and it chewed up that broken eazy out like it was nothing. It only took a few minutes and it was gone.

Always a pleasure watching your videos. Keep up the good work.

The only 1st, 2nd & 3rd TAPPING RULES I'VE EVER USED AND I HAVE NEVER BROKE A TAP.... #1 Always use a tapping fluid, of WD-40/Seafoam Deep Creep/PB Blast in a pinch. #2 If you're tapping any metals, always cut 1/4 to a 1/2 rotation of the tap and then GO IN REVERSE AND BACK OUT THE TAP 1 TO 1-1/2 TURNS. This "clears" the chips that can and will become jammed between the tap and the threads that you just cut, in the same hole. After backing the tap out, hen proceed cutting more of the threads, repeat the reversing step every 1/4 to 1 rotation, depending how much resistance you feel from the die and how difficult it is to turn. It's this resistance that eventually causes the tap to snap! #3 Always make sure your Tap and/or the die you are using IS SQUARE TO THE HOLE, or shaft you want to cut threads on. If it is not square, the deeper you go, the greater the chance you have of "locking up' the tap and snapping it's bitch-ass in half!!!

Sometimes a needle nose that can be used as a spanner in the holes.

Neat! First time I saw anyone use a burr in a mill haha. Thanks for taking a little extra time to insult my language. And Dutch is not a throat disease it's a mouth dysfunction.

Just came across this. Damn awesomely hysterical! Very refreshing to watch/listen to someone actually out in the field! I'm hooked.

Just crash landed on this channel!! Comepletely refreshing listening and watching!! Keep up the wizardry and shanagians,Im pickin up whatya lay'n down! Good stuff!!

YOU just name dropped yourself... "MR.chris" never knew your name

I LOVE your "racist" comments. People are just too sensitive these days. I've had people literally shouting at me because it was too offensive to say the word cripple... about MYSELF (legit crip with a limp and everything). The skin a cat comment, it was amazing. Please never change.

10:58 “why that was in my toolbox, I don’t know.” *CLANG* 2 points

You got a good, genuine laugh out of me with the "China is a country, not a race"bit. A sub too.

There is a special carbide spade drill made for drilling broken taps. The run at a real high speed. If you don't run them fast enough. They break apart. If it is going fast enough. It goes through like butter. It is best to run a full flood anytime you run carbide. But hard to have that in a home shop. I was a machinist for 37 years. I have had luck with the tap extract like you mentioned. But probably broke more of them then got them to work. We had one of the electro arc machine for removing taps in our shop. They buzz through a tap like you won't believe. One of the bosses in his infinite wisdom goes and surpluses it because it took up a 4 ft by ft space. I was like what the hell. He tells me no body ever uses that thing. I said the hell they don't. It gets used all the time. It is so fast guys are in and out of it in less then 10 minutes. They make sure they are so they don't have to answer to why they broke a tap off. We had EDM machines all in our shop across the street. He tells me if a tap gets broke we will send it and have them burn it out. If it was any sizable tap The Electro arc had a circuitry that just buzed through they thing. Faster then a drill could go though the hole to start with. It had flood coolant and a vibrating head also. The combination is what made it work so well. I was thinking you maybe should show how to tap the hole properly. Using the correct handle instead of a wrench. Backing the tap up to break the chip. Using a spring loaded center to keep the tap in proper alignment. Show some different style taps. Standard, gun, spiral, and form taps. If you have one show them how a tapping head works in a drill or milling machine. Or even show how to power tap on your milling machine.

I like to use a left handed drill for stuff like that.

Look at you AvE!!! 6 years later and you saved my ass!!!

Thank you for making it clear to the foggy. I stand with you on your thoughts. I love fact-based off of real results.

I really like the audio in this format. The compression and delayed echo. I miss it in the new videos.

Or get two small steel nails, put them in the little slots on the side and use a clamp to grab both nails and back the thing out, like an angle grinder wrench.

Whenever I break a tap, I immediately hook up the air chisel with a tapered punch and angrily beat the $h!t out of the remaining tap pieces. Haven't run into an hss tap I can't destroy. Stumbled across this video while looking for the punch attachment thinking there may be a better way - not in my case - obliterated another tap while watching this video thinking about all the time I drilled through hardened steel with a masonry bit when I could have used a carbide burr.

Stuffed 4 welding rods between the flutes and grabbed the whole shebang with vice-gripes. Actually worked AND, I ended up with art work ta-boot!

Know this is a super old video, but gotta say I love the un-politically-correct comedy. "many ways to skin a cat.......especially if you're chinese" I may have spit my beer across the room!

I have had to remove more broken taps than I would have wanted to. I never found drilling worked very well, the break would almost always fracture the remaining tap and as you started drilling the fragments would break free, jam the drill and break that as well. Our solution to anything bigger than 16mm was a home made punch with a tough carbide insert (generally a trigon shape) brazed onto a rod and just bash the remaining section into crumbs. This used the taps brittleness against it. Then re-tap the hole and keep going.

anyone who has delt with a broken tap must agree with buying a quality tap to begin with! AMEN brother!

I have used the tap removal tools and had some success with them, but they are expensive and not easily available. I usually try needle nose pliers and try to see if I can get any movement out of the tap. If it moves I use air to blow out the little chips as I work the broken portion back and forth. This works pretty well. The few times both failed and I had to get schooled from a guy who had many more years experience working in much worse environments then myself. He taught me if the tap breaks off in a cast block you can heat it with a torch and the tap will melt before the block will. That is a last ditched effort for me but with his years of experience makes it look easy, he took the time to show me how to do it. It takes me much longer then it did him but its one of those things that you don't get a second chance with if you melt the block.

I dated this Thai girl and she had a great sense of humor, here in the USA... We were at the Marina one day walking towards the filet table and she said, "Hide the fish-here comes an asian girl." Dang I miss her....

That dog story really gave me paws.

I have used the removal tool with the tines that fit between the flutes, I completely agree that they are junk. No luck with it at all. It's referenced here 13:30

When drilling with carbide: not only does the lubricant reduce the heat by burning off - which will make the bit last longer - but the lubricant also helps the chip flow away from the cutting surfaces which will keep the bit from chipping it's cutting surfaces off when it otherwise is forced to bite chip plus material. It's a general rule in life: _"There's always time for lubricant."_ Holds just as true in machining.

I've had to use carbide burs on broken taps and bolts. When you work in the field, you have to find work-arounds.

I had a similar problem (wasn't a tap though, was an ez-out snapped off in a broken sparkplug stuck in my cars engine heads) I had no idea about the drillbits you used for this (and the ez-out was hard enough that cobalt ones did nothing), so I actually used a small 8mm diamond tipped holesaw (like you use for tile). Worked pretty good actually.

I watch this Chanel because I've been a machinist for 41 years and I'm still learning stuff.

I want to hang out and drink beer with this guy just go hear his stories and his funny little sayings haha. But also this video was actually helpful! Thanks!

There once was a vid on the confuser made by Ave the KZfaqr He found in the midst a tap he could twist and broke it right off in some armor

I genuinely appreciate that you volume adjusted for the drilling during your editing. Was watching while I was at work, so I was worried that it would be too loud to watch without disrupting my office mates.

What Blows my mind is it’s hard to believe anyone that would even be searching or watching this video is the type person that would be offended by making fun of people. Been getting my Balls Busted and made fun of for 20 years in construction and shop environment.

This is easy when you have a drill press and a vice. Air drill by hand into a caliper bracket wasnt too bad, but you definitely need to make sure you hit it completely perpendicular.

When I was an apprentice, I snapped a spiral tap deep down in a blind hole, and the way I ended up getting it out was heating it up for awhile with the oxy and pouring oil down it and then smashing it to bits with a punch (went through quite a lot of punches)

Its not racism if you hate everyone equally!

That burr bit works dam well nice. I had one broken off. In the back of a platen. On a plactic injection molding machine. That was the best thing I found. Took my 90* air grinder. Half a work day later. Cleaned out the threads. And, the 1 1/2 hour job was complete.

Back in my fitting and machining days I would remove broken taps by getting a piece of thin flat bar - drilling a hole in the end smaller diameter that the tap and then mig weld the flat bar to the tap though the hole and use the flat bar as a spanner - it even helped if part of the tap was still protruding the hole

im german and not having a thoat disease :P loving your videos :) keep up the good work!