Curtis (exkenna) on Practical Machinist

http://www.practicalmachinist.com/vb/cnc-machining/tapping-titanium-201005/

“No mystery here.

Basic failure mode analysis. You cannot rub ti.. but you can cut it easily. So why is the tap failing?
Because it's rubbing the material.

How do you keep from rubbing the material? Use a tap with high hook and radial relief.

Check out the hook on these taps. Guess which one works great on cast. Right. Not the high hook
version. Abrasive material would wear down the hook really fast. But the high hook works great on ti
because it shaves the material.

Now, let's consider the other important factor: relief behind the cutting edge.
Remember how everyone preaches to you about using positive rake tooling on ti? Don't you think that
basic premise would apply to any cutting tool in a ti application..? Yep. So apply it to tap geometry. Get
some relief behind the cutting edge so the tap doesn't rub. Ti has a low modulus of elasticity. That
means it closes down on the tap behind the cutting edge, causing the snatching, binding, and popping
noise that we all hate.

Here:
Remember.. there are two basic modes of tool failure. Mechanical and heat related. Mechanical can be
broken down into two subsets: abrasive wear, and abrupt catastrophic failure such as breakage from an
interrupted cut.
Heat is always and everywhere the killer.. and ti is the textbook example.
The only acceptable mode of failure is abrasive wear at a predictive rate.

So:
Get an application specific tap for titanium. It will have the proper hook and relief.
Use a tap with as much lead as possible. 3-5 will work.
Keep the sfm below 70.
Use a decent tap compound. Moly-D is just fine. Coolant sucks. (Notice it doesn't say "tap compound"
anywhere on the barrel.)

If you want to rub something find a vase. Call me if Barbara Eden shows up.”