This is my first proper machining project. I had just finished the lathe training sequence at the Thayer School Machine Shop and one of the technical instructors came to me to show me a tap handle he found at a yard sale. Told me it would make a great shop first shop project and encouraged me to try and recreate it. That I did. This was by far one of the steepest learning curves I had in my time machining. It involved a couple of techniques I had never done including knurling, turning, and threading with a live center, putting a piece in the mill at a precise angle, surface grinding, and making parts that fit together.

This is where the instructors in the shop like to say that I “got the bug”. I really do have to agree with them. It has been a slippery slope since. If I were to go back, I would make a small tap groove on the back of the jaws so the tap handle could hold more tap sizes.