Tapping M10 holes in steel is something that every home engineering enthusiast has done. Most of us will have done it at school as part of our metalwork education. We may even own our very own and little-used tap and die sets. Mine sits at home proudly on a shelf in my office just waiting for the chance to thread something. Sadly those chances come around all too infrequently.

So if you work at Garmendale, you would have all the holes you’d ever need, just dying to be threaded. This latest batch is from a series of small plates to be added to a gating system and there are 186 holes to be threaded, all to M10 size and into 8mm steel. It’s a part you’ll never even see, but it’s critical and for us, it always needs to be finished beautifully. We care enough about the bits that the public never see to make sure they are perfect too. The laser cutting does a great job in delivering beautifully cut pieces to shape with rough(ish) cut holes, but not a thread in sight.

The bit that is used is totally different to one in a hand tap and die set as it doesn’t need to be constantly reversed to drive a thread through the steel. The Pillar drill that’s running it is clever enough to auto-reverse without ripping the thread back out again.

A machine die on the left compared to a hand tool on the right

We found the whole process quite therapeutic, so we set it to music for you to enjoy too.