Along with my love of cutting tools - sick I know - I also have a love for Poker. (and occasionally a hate for it too) Now I am NOT another "Johnny come lately" although my name is John and well, on second thought - lets not go there. Fair enough to say that I've played poker on and off for many years.
So I'm at the Soaring Eagle Casino in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan playing $1-2 no limit Texas-Hold'em Poker. For those of you who do not know, Mt. Pleasant is the home of Central Michigan University so there are plenty of college folks sitting at every poker table. This is good and this is bad because they are good and they are bad. Some of these young men and women are really good poker players while others probably should stick to the books as it would be much less expensive. There, that was said nicely, right?
We all talk about our bad beats and I am no different. I have about $200 in my stack and am sitting in the #4 chair. I look down at pocket J's. The #2 chair raises to $45 pre-flop. I was the only caller. The flop comes down: K J 4 and its a rainbow. So I've flopped trips. #2 bets $50 into a $93 pot. Don't ask me where the button is because it doesn't matter. I go all in for the rest of my $200 and he immediately calls. Now, this guy had been playing tight while I was there and I knew he had a big hand but when he turned over pocket Kings to show me drawing just about dead, that was not a good feeling. Luckily he had fewer chips than me so I still had about $40 left after the hand. Yes, of course I lost that...did you think I was gonna get that last Jack out of the deck. That only happens against me. See, told you sometimes I hate poker.
I don't like being short stacked so I bought another $150 to get back close to $200. The very next hand I see 10-J and call a small $15 pre-flop raise. The cards come down 8 9 Q. So I flop the straight. Now, the #5 chair was a very aggressive young man and so I checked it to him. One little smooth check and I think I am a Poker Genius. So #5 bets $40 and I just smooth call. I am the MAN! The turn comes out J. Crap, thats one of my down cards, now this is not such a fun hand anymore. I led out betting $50 at him this time and I didn't move a muscle while he looked at me, talked to me and tried to get info. It was funny, he said stuff like "So, top two pair is no good eh?" and "I think you're hiding in the bushes" Too Funny. He made all the right guesses but still couldn't fold his Q J and pushed all in which I, doing my best Phil Helmuth chip push into the table, immediately called. #5 looks at me with a bit too much comfort for me and says, "I still have outs". I knew it was over at that point and I watched as, no not a Q or J came out but the 10 did and we split the pot. Man, I hate poker!
I busted on pocket nines when I called "Mr. All-In" from seat #9 with my pocket 9's that had caught Trips on the flop only to have him have flopped the straight. So, it was off to the Kiddie-Game. 3-6 limit for me. Did I mention that I hate poker?
You know its funny, at the 3-6 table I was so aggressive, I turned $60 into $240 in about 8 hands. Have you ever played $3-6? People there are calling machines. They catch a pair of 2's on the flop and call you all the way down where if they are against me, they usually catch another 2 and beat my K's with an A kicker. Thats poker. The flip side to that is when they catch it and they turn over 8-2 with a two-2's on the board and look at me and say, "Oh wow, nice hand" as I turn over the Ace high flush that I flopped. I Love Poker!
Remember: Gamle with Chips not Tools. Buy your cutting tools and inserts at www.toolinghouse.com. That's always a GOOD bet!
Sunday, December 9, 2007
Thursday, December 6, 2007
Discussion of Tap Terms
A Tap has two main sections. The thread section and the shank section. The shank connects the thread section to the driving square at the back end of the shank. The driving square is the end of the tap that is held in the machine. Taps have centers at each end for manufacturing. Their can be External Centers that are full or truncated cones on sizes 3/8" (10mm) and smaller. Larger size taps have what are called Internal Centers. These are Center Holes.
Terminology of the Threaded Section:
The thread section of a tap is comprised of flutes. Flutes are grooves to provide cutting edges and space for chips and cutting fluid. I talked in an earier blog about the importance of chip evacuation. The same basics apply with taps as with end mills. Chips must be properly evacuated to allow a tap to cut clean threads and keep the tap from wearing out prematurely.
The chamfer is an angled, relieved section which allows the tap to progressively cut the thread form.
The space between the bottom of the flutes is called the core. The core diameter is also known as the width of the central section.
The threaded portions between the flutes are called the Lands. The core diameter and the lands give a tap its strength.
The Flutes on a tap are shaped to produce a cutting edge. A curved cutting edge is called a Hook and a straight cutting edge is call Rake. To be technical, a Hook is called a positive chordal hook angle. These angles can vary depending upon the material to be tapped. Typically 12-16 degree for tapping aluminum and 5-7 degrees for armor plate. You get the idea. The depth of the Hook is measured as the tangential hook angle. Yea, thats enough of the technical stuff for now.
A Rake can be Negative, Radial or Positive. The three factors listed below influence the amount of Hook or Rake, the size of the core, the width of the land and the angle of the chamfer.
1. Type of Material To Be Cut.
2. Material hardness.
3. Type of Hole to Be Cut.
I'll come back to this later and give you some more ramblings about taps and relief angles. For now, I need to go sell tools. I guess I can do that right here: for Taps go to www.toolinghouse.com. Shameless plug - I know. (No pun intended)
Ok, I 'm back to finish this, but I'm leaving the shamless plug because I can do that...
Let me talk about relief angles. All taps are manufactured with various types of Relief, designed to minimize tap-to-part contact, which increases friction, heat and reduces tap life and the quality of the part.
The thread section of a tap may have various combinations of radial relief on the thread form. Basically there are three combinations.
1. Concentric: has no relief.
2. Eccentric: has radial relief in the thread form starting at the cutting edge and continuing to the heel.
3. Con-Eccentric: has radial relief in the thread form starting behind the concentric margin. In English that means it has a combination of both concentric and eccentric relief. In German it means the same thing I just don't know how to say it.
Do you know what Back Taper is? Well, almost every tap made has back taper. Taps almost always have axial relief or Back Taper, so that the diameter at the back is smaller than the front. If you are a numbers person it is apporximately .001" per inch of diameter. If you're not a numbers person, then it means that the back of the tap is a tiny bit smaller in diameter than the front of the tap.
Let's talk about everyone's friend: Thread Form.
Find a comfortable chair and put your thinking caps on. By the way, what is a thinking cap and how do I acquire one? Anyway, here we go: Thread Form consists of Flanks which connect the Crests at the Major Diameter to the Roots at the Minor or Root Diameter. Simple stuff, right? Ok Good.
The Root is the bottom surface joining the flanks of two adjacent threads. If you think about that it really does make sense. I'm not making this up I promise. So, you're still with me, right?
The Pitch Diameter is the diameter of an imaginary cylinder whose surface passes through the thread form axially at such points as to make the width of the groove equal to one-half of the Basic Pitch. Hmmm, we probably need either an aspirin or another English version of that mumbo-jumbo. See if this helps:
Basic: The theoretical or nominal standard size from which all variations are made.
Major Diameter: the largest diameter of the screw or nut on a straight screw thread.
Minor Diameter: The smallest diameter of the screw or nut on a straight screw thread.
(Please, no Bevis & Butthead comments about "You said, Screw and nut. That's pretty cool.")
Height of thread: In profile, the distance between crest and basic minor diameter of the thread measured normal to the axis. I may have to add a few pics here as it would illustrate this much better. I'll see if I can find some later.
That's most of the tap terminology. In a future thread I'll talk about Types of Taps. You know, Hand, Machine, Metric, Spiral Point, Spiral Flute, Taper, Thread Forming and Pipe. For now, Have a Great Day! This ramble is over.
Terminology of the Threaded Section:
The thread section of a tap is comprised of flutes. Flutes are grooves to provide cutting edges and space for chips and cutting fluid. I talked in an earier blog about the importance of chip evacuation. The same basics apply with taps as with end mills. Chips must be properly evacuated to allow a tap to cut clean threads and keep the tap from wearing out prematurely.
The chamfer is an angled, relieved section which allows the tap to progressively cut the thread form.
The space between the bottom of the flutes is called the core. The core diameter is also known as the width of the central section.
The threaded portions between the flutes are called the Lands. The core diameter and the lands give a tap its strength.
The Flutes on a tap are shaped to produce a cutting edge. A curved cutting edge is called a Hook and a straight cutting edge is call Rake. To be technical, a Hook is called a positive chordal hook angle. These angles can vary depending upon the material to be tapped. Typically 12-16 degree for tapping aluminum and 5-7 degrees for armor plate. You get the idea. The depth of the Hook is measured as the tangential hook angle. Yea, thats enough of the technical stuff for now.
A Rake can be Negative, Radial or Positive. The three factors listed below influence the amount of Hook or Rake, the size of the core, the width of the land and the angle of the chamfer.
1. Type of Material To Be Cut.
2. Material hardness.
3. Type of Hole to Be Cut.
I'll come back to this later and give you some more ramblings about taps and relief angles. For now, I need to go sell tools. I guess I can do that right here: for Taps go to www.toolinghouse.com. Shameless plug - I know. (No pun intended)
Ok, I 'm back to finish this, but I'm leaving the shamless plug because I can do that...
Let me talk about relief angles. All taps are manufactured with various types of Relief, designed to minimize tap-to-part contact, which increases friction, heat and reduces tap life and the quality of the part.
The thread section of a tap may have various combinations of radial relief on the thread form. Basically there are three combinations.
1. Concentric: has no relief.
2. Eccentric: has radial relief in the thread form starting at the cutting edge and continuing to the heel.
3. Con-Eccentric: has radial relief in the thread form starting behind the concentric margin. In English that means it has a combination of both concentric and eccentric relief. In German it means the same thing I just don't know how to say it.
Do you know what Back Taper is? Well, almost every tap made has back taper. Taps almost always have axial relief or Back Taper, so that the diameter at the back is smaller than the front. If you are a numbers person it is apporximately .001" per inch of diameter. If you're not a numbers person, then it means that the back of the tap is a tiny bit smaller in diameter than the front of the tap.
Let's talk about everyone's friend: Thread Form.
Find a comfortable chair and put your thinking caps on. By the way, what is a thinking cap and how do I acquire one? Anyway, here we go: Thread Form consists of Flanks which connect the Crests at the Major Diameter to the Roots at the Minor or Root Diameter. Simple stuff, right? Ok Good.
The Root is the bottom surface joining the flanks of two adjacent threads. If you think about that it really does make sense. I'm not making this up I promise. So, you're still with me, right?
The Pitch Diameter is the diameter of an imaginary cylinder whose surface passes through the thread form axially at such points as to make the width of the groove equal to one-half of the Basic Pitch. Hmmm, we probably need either an aspirin or another English version of that mumbo-jumbo. See if this helps:
Basic: The theoretical or nominal standard size from which all variations are made.
Major Diameter: the largest diameter of the screw or nut on a straight screw thread.
Minor Diameter: The smallest diameter of the screw or nut on a straight screw thread.
(Please, no Bevis & Butthead comments about "You said, Screw and nut. That's pretty cool.")
Height of thread: In profile, the distance between crest and basic minor diameter of the thread measured normal to the axis. I may have to add a few pics here as it would illustrate this much better. I'll see if I can find some later.
That's most of the tap terminology. In a future thread I'll talk about Types of Taps. You know, Hand, Machine, Metric, Spiral Point, Spiral Flute, Taper, Thread Forming and Pipe. For now, Have a Great Day! This ramble is over.
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