Quote:
Originally Posted by sanddrag
I have to respectfully disagree. I've tapped 1/8 aluminum quite successfully in every thread from #4-40 up to 1/4-20 and it works just fine if you're careful about it.
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Seconded. 3476 has been tapping 1/8 aluminum for a few years now. If your bolts are rattling loose, use threadlocker (given the vibrations that normal FRC machines experience, we use it on almost every bolt on our robots).
Now stripping out the threads is a different story. One of the intake pivot mounts on our 2013 machine was connected with bolts to the 1/8 tapped aluminum frame. The consistent shock loads from quickly raising/lowering the intake and normal robot/field contact was enough to strip out one of the taps. In situations like that, we found it would be better to run a bolt entirely through the frame rather than simply tap one side. (It wasn't possible on that particular mount, for reasons I won't get into
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