Manufacturer of the world's most secure fasteners

Tap Dancing In The Round

Apr 02, 2015

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We tap our Key-Rex® and Penta® nuts in a separate operation. Standard hex nuts have specially made machines that grip the hex and tap at 700 per minute. Our security nuts are designed not be gripped because of their taper at the bottom. This presents problems. It requires a balancing act between special high pressure clamps and oil. Both are required, yet the oil makes clamping even harder. The only way to make it work is to “tap dance” around the adjustments. As a result, we produce only 10 nuts per minute. Now you know why our big orders take a little longer to ship.

Here, you can see John monitoring the machine. This used tapping machine was a lucky find 8 years ago. It was set up to tap round nuts up to 1 ¼ in diameter. The clamps were strong enough to hold our ½-13 security nuts. We reengineered our tooling and made it work. I’m (Bryce) always on the lookout for another used tapping machine but haven’t found one since. Keep me in mind if you ever come across one.

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