First of all, thanks to everyone for all of their suggestions. A few people had questions and some wanted to know how it turned out:
A lot of people wanted to know "How did you break off 2 taps in cast iron?" Well, I am first to admit when Ido something stupid - the second one was me being stupid, but the first one snapped off easily and without warning. I know when I've gotten lazy and pushed something harder than I should. You know, "One more half-turn and then I'll clear out the chips". But the first one must have been hard spot in piece or defective tap. I ended up getting it out with a tap extractor - further evidence that it was not going in too tight when it broke.
The second one, well, I, um, kind of tried to learn how to use a Tapmatic I bought at an auction by starting with a 5-40 tap on a blind hole...probably not my brightest move. I wasn't precise when I drilled the holes and one was not as deep as the others. The tap bottomed and snapped in a heartbeat. Yes, I could've had the clutch on the Tapmatic set lighter, but I did not. This bad boy was in there
- I couldn't get the fingers of the extractor in. I heated this one up with the torch. I didn't really expect it to help much, but it softened it considerably. I was able to drill it out with a combination of a 3/32" carbide end mill and a regular old drill bit.
Now, how to avoid breaking off teeny-tiny taps in the future? Well, I took an evening and some pieces from the scrap bin and made a small tapper! Check it out at:
Thanks again, Wallace