I've recently inherited a large number of taps and dies, approximately 200 at a quick glance.
For the absolute most common sizes, 2 pieces of 1/2" plate had been cut approximately 1.5"x10" and threaded holes fabricated to hold the taps and bolts inserted to hold the dies for storage. What is an easy way to store the remainder of the taps and dies that make it quick and easy to identify without having to dig through plastic baggies and boxes as is the case now?
I inherited a set of Greenlee taps and dies from my father in law. Had a nice wooden box with all the taps and dies routed out. Unfortunately it was left in a moist garden shed and the box warped to the point it was unusable. I threw them in a tool box drawer 20 years ago and have accumulated other cats-and-dogs as the years went by.
Last week I dumped them out on the kitchen island and laid them out on my healing pad to see what I had and how I could make them more usable. The green tape border is the size of an available tool box drawer.
I'm going to make a foam drawer organizer from the pads available at HF. Laying it out with 1" tape to make sure it all fits with adequate margins.
For the dies, a piece of thin-wall tube the same diameter as the thread dies works, and sharpened on the belt sander, cuts the foam perfectly smooth and round. For the taps, I'm going to route out a tray in the foam using a grinding stone on a pin router. Made a few samples and it seems to make a very nice pocket.
Might be more of a 'science project' than you were looking for. You can just buy a Huot box and be done with it, but I wanted my handles, taps and dies all in one place. Too cold to work in the garage this time of year.
We had that style of dispenser in the tool crib at work, and I really thought that was a very nice way to keep letter/number/fractional bits and taps and dies. With a lot of space, it'd be my preferred approach.
Ultimately though, I decided that I didn't want to give up any more counter space for the dispensers, but some real estate was available in a tool box drawer. This is about $30 of Shaller boxes with drill bits in them - they are all fractional and the letter/numbers are in indexes in drawers lower in the cabinet since I don't use them often. I considered doing something like this, except with taps and dies-
Shaller has a simple to use CAD program to lay out drawers with their boxes on their website.
I have a hard plastic case they came in. My extras are in two bags sorted by metric and SAE. I can find one fast and when it wears out I go to the plastic bag and find a replacement.. Is that the best way. No. but it works for me for now.
I have though of drilling appropriate holes in a 2x3 and stick the taps in cutting edge up. Another 2x3 with nails for the dies. Never got around to it.
Some great ideas here.
Here's mine, it's a harbor freight 26" lower cabinet that I outfitted with dividers. The dividers are Huot that I cut with a miter saw. I used aluminum angle for the spacers. Works very nice to organize a lot of smaller taps. The individual LISTA trays are too large when you only have 1 or 2 of a certain tap size.
Did you cut them in half? How many master sets did it take to outfit your drawer? Two?
I put my cutting tools in a dedicated deep drawer. For the most used, I took a board and drilled holes that were just over the shank size of each tap size. Ranked in 3 rows if taper, plug and bottoming and groups of NF and NC up to 1/2". Big ones (pipe up to 2") lay down. Also have one full set of US up to 3/4 in original Butterfield wooden box and one later vintage metric up to IIRC 16mm in its original box. Do the same with Prentiss bits from 33/64 up to 1" on the drill shelving.
Did you cut them in half? How many master sets did it take to outfit your drawer? Two?
I don't remember if they were cut exactly in half, but I did cut them length wise so they they were only as long as they needed to be. I also cut the width down on one end so it fit the width of the drawer. I ordered 4 of the smaller master sets and 2 of the larger, and put some in other drawers so I'm not exactly sure how many that drawer took.
Depending upon available space and frequency of use there are a few options that would organize your taps/dies nicely.
If you have counter/bench space available a parts organizer would do a nice job. Breakout the Brother P-Touch and in short order you'll have your new collection well organized and close at hand.
If taps and or dies aren't something which will be used frequently I would think that Plano tackle trays ( or ) would protect and organize your new tools. Again labels are your best friend here too.
Lastly, my only other storage recommendation for taps and dies would be to spray them all on occasion with a rust preventer. The carbon steel rusts instantly and corroded taps are ruined taps. I use Boeshield because its not too thick/heavy but anything will help especially if you keep your tools in any unheated space.
Traced all my taps, dies and handles in Inkscape from photos I took on my iphone. Made the page size the same as my drawer in my 52" Harbor Freight tool box.
I'm going to send the .svg file off to a laser cutter and see if I can get a price to have it cut.
The local print shop will make a copy for a couple of bucks so I'll try to validate the layout with a paper print.
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