Broken tap now what...Do you have a laser engraver?

[dakor]

I created a post last year that I broke a tap off in a Remington 700 receiver when I was opening it up to 8-40 threads. I have never broken a tap before and was just about at the bottom of the last hole and snap.

After posting on here about it and waiting for some tiny carbide endmills to show up in the mail I sat around and kept asking myself how to I get the tap out?

I was going to go in with endmills and I know I would break a few to start since the tap piece was jagged where it broke. So while I was thinking about it I had purchased a 30 watt laser engraver a couple months prior and I wondered if that would work?

I set the receiver up in the laser engraver chuck and got it level. I than went into lightburn software and drew a tiny circle and set it to fill.

The circle was about the size of the center of the tap and once every thing was lined up I set the job to do 20 passes at a time so things would not get too hot. I allowed time to cool after each job. I set the power to 90 and the frequency to 20 and let it rip.

Here is the video and youtube must have downgraded the quality when I uploaded it but you get the point.

Best part is it worked and all I needed to do was clean out what was left of the tap with a pick and take a new tap and finish the hole.

 

[Dan-Schenk]

That’s one hell of an idea!

 

[jackieschmidt]

Neat!

 

[LVLAaron]

See! everyone needs a laser in the shop.

 

[okie]

get that process patented--manfold bolts broken by thousands daily...

 

[LuvDog]

I've been wanting a laser for a while... just another reason.

Once I get my basement project done, I think I'll add one

 

[dakor]

Thanks. It worked very well.

 

[cavedweller60]

The poor mans EDM.

 

[Judd]

Guy that used to do my laser engraving told me that if I ever snapped a screw head off to bring it to him and he’d laser a star in the broken piece and we could just screw out on out. Fortunately I’ve not had to do that, yet.

 

[CCM]

I've been using mine a fair amount for broken/stripped screw removal lately. I don't even bother trying to drill and extract stuff anymore if I can get it on the laser. It's really nice for shotgun beads.

 

[mike mccormick]

That's a great solution to the problem!

 

[ELR LVR]

This is definitely a very cool idea.
So no slag sticking to the inside or anything?

 

[dakor]

This is definitely a very cool idea.
So no slag sticking to the inside or anything?

I did not have any of that. I lasered a hole through tap piece and when I was done there was not enough metal to hold it together.

When I went in with the pick the tap broke apart into pieces and fell out the bottom of the hole.