Sears sells decent taps and are easy to get. Never broke one and asked them to replace it under their tool warranty but the worst they could say is "no".
HSS is plenty adequate for aluminum and light duty ferrous work. YOu would want better material for more serious steel or iron.
The imported stuff may be adequate but it won't be the quality of a premium non-imported item.
MSC sells mail order as does Grizzly, Emco and many others. I'd consider the imported stuff as "use and toss" quality as opposed to something you'd had down to your kids...
We use it (import or "world quality")for odd ball jobs that you HAVE to get done and don't expect to do again any time soon and don't have a fortune in the tooling budget.
Invest in a drill/tap chart. In hard to tap materials, if you go 0.002 to 0.005 oversize of recommended hole, it is much easier to tap (threads are still quite adeqate) and less chance of tap breakage (a nightmare regardles of the tap source). |