[Mike Gladstone]

We are doing some repairs for a local theme park. They gave us a partition door to remake and I tried to remove the inserts and found that they had been drilled and tapped. They actually just unscrewed with a flat head screwdriver and they would not pound out.  I know about squirrels and these are not them. Has anyone ever used this method? Any issues with it?

[David Gerard]

I have tapped SS in a non counter top situation. the material was doubled up. It definetly works. On a 1/2 ” thickness I wouldn’t because of sufficient thread depth due to the taper of the tap.
I wonder if there was some glue involved with your problem? Maybe a little heat to break the bond or acetone?

[David Gerard]

I have tapped SS in a non counter top situation. the material was doubled up. It definetly works. On a 1/2 ” thickness I wouldn’t because of sufficient thread depth due to the taper of the tap.
I wonder if there was some glue involved with your problem? Maybe a little heat to break the bond or acetone?

[Gordon Shell]

Not recommended

[Mike Gladstone]

The material was doubled up and the tap went into it about 3/16″.

Gordon, you say not recommended, but I looked at over ten different areas with these toilet partitions and there was no issue with any of them. The issue is customer abuse (i.e. slamming the door hard) causing it to crack inward from the strike plate.

[Tom M]

Mike,
In the early days we would fasten dishwashers like that all the time. I can’t recall any issues. We only stopped when they rejected the method and we were afraid of voiding the warranty.

We didn’t tap so much as thread a 32nd of an inch in the material, though. If you unscrewed, you would see a similar look to tapping.

[Gordon Shell]

I’m just saying “not recommended” based off my years of teaching SS, this job is a commercial application so you dont really have a warranty anyhow but if a warranty agent saw a screw or bolt directly into solid surface it would instantly be bumped back to the fabricator.
I used to tell the guys that came thru my training that if you want warranty support follow the manual exactly, if it is a custom job and you are making enough profit to cover your own warranty then do it your own way. The problem I ran into was the guys that thought they could cover their own warranties and would choose to stray from the manual usually were out of business within a year and all their warranty issues would fall back in my lap.
I used the analogy that you can go buy a new Ford Truck with a 100,000 mile bumper to bumper warranty, the warranty is based on what Ford knows they engineered to last for 100,000, if you choose to add 500 horsepower to the motor, change the suspension, wheels, electronics, etc. you will not have 100,000 mile warranty any longer.

My “not recommended” comment comes from a guy that has represented manufacturers, if you can do it and feel confident that its not going to fail, or if it does, you will be able to support the future repair then go for it.

[Andy Graves]

We have drilled and tapped corian in the past. I think it works fine I think the squirrels are a better solution.

[Mike Gladstone]

Here are some photos.
Threaded Corian

Back of insert

Front of insert.

[Andy Graves]

I don’t see why that wouldn’t work.

[Tom M]

So is that similar to a heliocoil?

[Mike Gladstone]

Looks really similar to helicoil thread because you use a tap, but it’s just tapped and then the insert is screwed in.

[Author]

Posts