Floating Tap Holder.

[Will_D]

I have been trying to find a floating tap holder using ER collects and R8 shank. No luck.

All I can find are ISO or MT shanks.

How do these work? How does the tap (or reamer) float?

Could I just make one?

[awemawson]

Will, I have a few that have plain shanks - bought on eBay and / or Bangood.

I'll try and find specifics later as I'm a bit tied up at the moment

[eskoilola]

 
Seems like this means a tap holder that allows the tap to move (spring loaded) in the direction of the Z-axis but is rigid on all other directions. This allows the CNC machine to push the tap in the hole inaccuretely.

[awemawson]

Will, I got these ER16 floating tap holders from Aliexpress:

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/SL25-WER216-80L-Floating-straight-shank-tapping-collet-chuck-and-tapping-holder-for-lathe/32442849161.html

However I prefer to use Bilz style tap holders on the native Cat40 shank for my CNC Mill. Bilz floating tapping heads all give movement in the Z axis as to per a normal floating tap holder, but also the inserts are available in a torque limiting version.

Any floating tapping head allows tapping on a machine not set up for 'rigid tapping', and gives a degree of safety from tap breakage. The torque limiting variety obviously allow for an even greater safety margin