Hello

I'm about to purchase a Tormach and I'm little stumped when it comes to the best approach for threading. I'm new to CNC (and largely metal machining) and currently use hand taps when I need a thread. I typically use taps in the M3 - M10 range.

From a mill pre-purchase stand point it seems to me that having a tapping head on the mill is likely to do a better job than I can achieve by hand and has the benefit of being quicker at doing multiple threaded holes.
Tormach has two types of heads available the "Reversing Tapping Head" and the "Tension/Compression (T/C) Tapping Head". They have some documentation on the technical aspects of the differences but I'm none the wiser on the practical benefits. I.e. is the difference in g-code for threading of relevance if using alibre/sprutcam?

The T/C tapping head is appealing because of the wider range of supported taps for a single head, the quick change aspect and the lower cost.

However applying the "you get what you pay for principle" what's the advantage of the Reversing Tapping heads?

In terms of my applications for the Tormach there's no one dominant one. Its going to be used from brass components for furniture to aluminium tooling for polyurethane components.

If anybody has any advice on threading it would be much appreciated.

Thanks, Christian