Tapping .09 pure Titanium sheet

[lapuser]

I have been asked to bid on a job that involves drilling and then tapping 200 holes. Thread is 1-72 and material is Ti pure 7" x 5" x .09 plates. The tool rep from my supplier has recommended using form taps for this as distortion is not an issue here. What alarms me is recommendations like 2300 rpm on the tap and I wonder if he has dealt with this before. The mill to be used is a Haas VF3 with ridgid tapping. Has anyone here ever worked with a situation like this? Please let me know if you have actually done this as I need real world solutions. Thanks, Lapuser

 

[ncassist]

I have had great success tapping .07 thick 6AL4V titanium, #3-56 through, CNC with coolant, nothing special, regular cut taps (usually you need special taps for ti, I prefer YAW). I think I was about 1500 rpm, so 2700 for #1-72 may not be too far off. I would be careful about going too slow with your RPM.

Dave

 

[wellman]

You might also look into thread milling. I believe most hass visual programming is capable of programming these and most tooling manufacturers will help you programm these. In materials like this thread milling will usually outperform taps,