New life for broken taps

Running both the drill and the sander allows you to control the angle of the point precisely.

It’s always disappointing when the tap breaks while you’re tapping a hole. So, we came up with a way to reuse broken and worn-out taps.

Broken taps that are 3⁄8-inch diameter or more get chucked into a drill and ground to a point with a belt sander. Running both the drill and the sander allows us to control the angle of the point precisely.

We can then reuse them as center punches for marking holes. We keep several at each workstation in our shop. They also make handy pocket-size punches.

Paul Waldner

Kimball, S.D.

You can reuse the broken taps as center punches for marking holes.