[Jeff Lastofka]

IMG_6623D.JPG (394.17 KiB) Viewed 521 times

I rarely break taps, but broke one on the 15th of a 16 hole project with machining time invested. I remembered Jody's video on the idea and in just a few minutes I got it rescued. I'm a fairly amateur TIG welder, so if I can do it, probably any welder can. 1/16 electrode and rod, 25 Amp setting but I may not have used all of it, went slow and soaked in the heat, built a little circle of deposit, circled my way up some and made the circle bigger, then went straight back and forth over the top to make an elongated football for vice grip action. Splashed in a little Tap Magic and a small vice grips backed it out pretty easily.
I didn't think to chemically clean the tap and hole first so the first weld I put in there was weak. The second one was fine. Next time I'll clean first. Duh....

I couldn't see the tap real well so I put the electrode right down in the middle of the hole and let the arc take care of the last bit of aiming:-) Once the glowing blob was forming I could circle around that and pile material on top of it easily. Fun stuff.......

[Gdarc21]

On the cleaning, I am a big 'keep it clean to tig' kinda guy, but when dealing with threads put lanolin/wd40 on lightly and use heat (it may catch alight a bit, just you know) to clean, wipe excess lanolin etc. Be cause if its clean your filler may stick to thread, have done this its not fun. And if the tig weld area is clean but everything else is lightly lubed the heat from tig helps it go down into thread.
Any way this is a great post and will definitley help me to remember it.

[BugHunter]

Good job.

I've done that on numerous exhaust manifold bolts, but I don't think I ever did a tap.