Tapping holes while material is still clamped to my mill table?

[HankMcSpank]

Have a look for the cheap socket sets usually in the £1 shops in most I have seen they have a hex to 1/4 square socket that you could then fit to a socket to fit the tap. Not sure a tap that small will be 1/4, I thought they were a bit smaller. Not sure if the setup will be in line enough to tap square though.
Have you tried tapping the thread holding the material in a vice to try and stop it splitting.

Peter

Some top tips there Peter ! But you know what - you're right, the square male end of a standard tap can't be 1/4", becuase the other night, I was trying to find a hex socket to kludge it into ...it transpired that something like a 4.5mm socket was too small & yet a 5mm socket was too large. (then Golidlocks dropped by & we talked about threading & screwing at length lol )

I'm assuming that male square end is an imperial dimension/fitting of some sort? Does anyone know what the square male end dimension is on a tap?

re tapping in a vice afterwards, you know what, sometimes you can get so close to a problem that the solution might be blissfully simple - no I haven't tried tapping in a vice afterwards...but I will! (though it'd still be nice to have the electric screwdriver do it, so my query still stands!)

Edit - Hi Robin, no I haven't got or tried a spiral taper - that sounds like danger to me...I think I'll stay all 'quaint & rural England' & stick with my hand threading!