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Drilling a 12 point deep 3/8" socket.

jcdammeyer

jcdammeyer

John
Premium Member
I want to anchor the socket to the impact wrench. I drilled a hole perpendicular to one of the flats. It ticked a bit as I drilled but the metal appeared soft enough to tap. NOT! as it turned out. So one flat isn't' available for hole anymore. Used the dremel to grind away the tap.

So. The question is. If I heat up just the drive end of the socket to cherry red and let it cool slowly will it soften enough so I don't go through another tap. This was an M5 brand new from Cdn Tire (hard to find single metric taps in Victoria) at about $10. The socket from KMS was also $11.

Anyone every heated and drilled a socket?
 
jcdammeyer said:
I want to anchor the socket to the impact wrench. I drilled a hole perpendicular to one of the flats. It ticked a bit as I drilled but the metal appeared soft enough to tap. NOT! as it turned out. So one flat isn't' available for hole anymore. Used the dremel to grind away the tap.

So. The question is. If I heat up just the drive end of the socket to cherry red and let it cool slowly will it soften enough so I don't go through another tap. This was an M5 brand new from Cdn Tire (hard to find single metric taps in Victoria) at about $10. The socket from KMS was also $11.

Anyone every heated and drilled a socket?
Click to expand...

This is an interesting question. I've wondered about modifying sockets too but have successfully avoided having to do it.

A question to help others respond. You said you are using an impact driver. Does that mean the socket is an impact socket too?

And how are you going to keep the thinner socket walls from getting soft too?

Rather than drilling, wouldn't you be better off using a burr on the inside of the drive end to make a pocket for the drivers retaining ball?

Why do you need a screw for this job?
 
If you heat the socket the hardness will be affected, it will probably turn soft and mushroom when used with the impact wrench.
I would try a carbide drill first before heating.. The taps from Canadian tire are of poor quality. Check these guys out for a good tap. I've bought several items from them the quality is acceptable . Their in BC

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jcdammeyer said:
Anyone every heated and drilled a socket?
Click to expand...

Aliva said:
I would try a carbide drill first before heating..
Click to expand...

I still don't know why you need to use a screw....

But if I accept that this is a requirement, I'd use an oversize carbide drill (oversize VS the ideal for the screw) and then tap carefully with a high quality tap. The thread fit will be low, but perhaps adequate for your needs? .....

Another thought would be to run the torch flame through the hole for a short while to get some localized surface annealing to facilitate threading.

Yet another thought is to buy a socket that already has the hole and just thread it as above.

I think we could help better if we knew why you want to use a screw.
 
I've heated a socket up to make it machinable. The purpose was to reduce the hardness which worked well. My end purpose for the socket was the only rare instance I can imagine where a softened socket would be acceptable.
 
I drilled and tapped the PowerPoint socket I used on my power drawbar. I drilled the hole 4.4mm instead of the 4.3mm listed in my chart and used a KBC brand M5 tap HSS. The socket didn't seem all that hard and the tap went through it with no problem.

20201212_114937.jpg
20201212_114944.jpg
20201212_120452.jpg


Th KBC house brand taps are excellent.
 
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My kid brother asked me to thin a socket down for him so it would fit in a tight spot....I was beyond skeptical that it would cut with any tooling I had but giv'er a try anyways. it was a Craftsman product and cut like cheese with a carbide insert. I was shocked at how machinable that socket was.
If you do need to heat the drive end & are trying to keep heat from the nut end, poke the nut end into an apple as a heat sink...it does work for small parts that heat up quickly.
 
John Conroy did what I want to do. I was using a 6 point 3/8" deep impact socket that came with a hole that was easily tapped. But I need 12 point for the butterfly impact wrench. The amount of impact use is actually quite small so I doubt it would deform the 3/8" drive part.

With 11 out of 12 tries slipping over the drawbar nut retention with the little spring on the wrench isn't a problem. But if it hits the 12th time and doesn't line up but stops it tends to jam a bit and that's when it pulls off the wrench. With the 6 point socket it was more like 50% chance of jamming so the 12 point has gone a long way to solving the problem. I think ultimately hardening the head or fixing a much harder bolt head onto it will be the best solution.

Thanks everyone.
 
Silicone sealant would hold the socket on quite well and be removable, and wouldn't be affected by the impact action.
 
When the socket jams, from the air cylinder force, onto the draw bar nut it's on there quite tight. I'm going to look at welding some oil hardening steel onto the end of the CRS I'd use for the drawbar. Rather than turn down the entire length like the one that came with the mill. It had a square head that I turned into 19mm hex. I might even try heating and quenching it to see if that hardens it enough. Nothing to loose. I have the one I made many years ago that has 9/16" double nuts at the top. They spin loose with the impact wrench but work well enough.
 
One positive thing about the manual pull down unit I made for my old mill is that you can feel the socket is engaged with the draw bar before starting the impact wrench. The Torque-Rite unit on my new mill uses an air actuator to drive the socket down onto the drawbar but has the advantage of using a 12 point socket as well as a 12 point head on the draw bar with a tapered lead-in the help engagement.

When I made the drawbar for the old mill I used a length of 7/16" drill rod from KBC, threaded 7/16 NF on one end and with a short length of 3/4" hex bar welded to the top. Here's the one I made along with the original. I machined the spacer with a collar that is a tight fit into the top of the spindle to keep the top of the drawbar on center when tightened.

P5231049.JPG
 
Janger said:
Weld the socket on to the wrench. Why not?
Click to expand...
It needs a certain amount of, let's call it, adjustment. There's no way I'd be able to get it exactly straight. In fact I found when I tightened the set screw it would stick down and not come up.

BTW, this is all because I am doing this all automatically. Pretty well every other power draw bar system with an air cylinder is operated by a human with a leaver and then a button to go CW/CCW.

A human know if the socket didn't seat. So I think, given that this socket already has a bit of tap seized on one side I'll heat the whole thing up and see what happens. I'll report the results.
 
I also found that if the set screw was tight it would skew the alignment of the socket. I used a small carbide burr on a Dremel to make a slight bowl in one of the flats of the square drive on the impact wrench. The tip of the set screw was advanced into the bowl but not tightened against the square drive. A little blue loctite keeps it from coming loose. The socket can wobble slightly but will not come off unless the screw is backed out.
 
Don’t ask me how you’d make it, but some adapters/extensions have a spring loaded pin instead of a ball. You line up the hole in the socket with the pin and it locks in place but still has some play. You need to grab a small pick or screwdriver to push the pin back to get the socket off again
 
Chicken lights said:
Don’t ask me how you’d make it, but some adapters/extensions have a spring loaded pin instead of a ball. You line up the hole in the socket with the pin and it locks in place but still has some play. You need to grab a small pick or screwdriver to push the pin back to get the socket off again
Click to expand...

I had one of those and forgot it was there. I got pissed off with it one day and broke the pin off. Ended up VERY embarrassed when I realized what I had done.

I've only ever seen the pin style on impact extension bars or size adapters. I think they are Forged on.
 
I didn't lock the socket on my power draw bar it's never fallen off on over 5 years and I never hardened the the draw bar either. If the socket keeps falling off you have an issue with the impact
DSC06482.JPG
 
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