Tradezone Hornby, the trading name of Drills, Taps & Dies Ltd, is a specialist engineering and workshop supplies store on Main South Road in Hei Hei, Christchurch. True to its name, the business is built around cutting and threading tools — drills, taps, dies and everything that goes with them — but the range stretches far beyond, across more than sixty catalogue categories that run from abrasives and brushware through to welding and gas equipment, vices and wheels & castors.
The store and its website serve machinists, engineers, mechanics, builders and home-workshop hobbyists alike. You will find milling cutters and annular cutters alongside key, silver and shim steel; lathe and mill accessories next to hand tools, sockets and clamps; and machinery such as drill presses, bandsaws and grinders alongside the lubricants, files and safety gear that keep a workshop running.
Shopping is set up for both the counter and the screen: the drillstapsdies.co.nz website carries the full catalogue with an account sign-in and registration system and a shopping cart that totals in New Zealand dollars inclusive of GST. Well-known brands stocked include Hikoki and Makita power tools, Hans Tools hand tools and sockets, Starrett and Blaze measuring equipment, Bessey clamps, CRC and Alemlube lubricants, and Powercoil thread-repair products.
On Main South Road in Hei Hei, Christchurch, Tradezone Hornby — the trading name of Drills, Taps & Dies Ltd — occupies a useful niche in the city's trade landscape. It is a specialist engineering and workshop supplies store, and its name is a plain-spoken summary of its heartland: drills, taps and dies. Around that core sits one of the broader tool catalogues in the country, with more than sixty product categories running all the way from abrasives and brushware to welding and gas equipment, vices and wheels & castors.
The store and its website, drillstapsdies.co.nz, serve machinists, fitters, automotive engineers, builders, maintenance crews and home-workshop hobbyists. Whether the job is cutting a thread, boring a hole, holding work on a mill or simply finding the right length of key steel, the range is arranged so a working tradesperson can go from problem to part quickly. A shopping cart on the site totals in New Zealand dollars inclusive of GST, and customers can register an account to sign in and order.
As the name promises, cutting tools are the backbone. The drills category spans auger bits, brad point drills and auger-bit extensions, with drill accessories covering chucks, arbors and chuck adaptors. Around them sit annular cutters for mag drills — sold individually, in sets and in both metric and imperial — holesaws and mandrels, circle cutters, carbide-tip holesaws, slitting saws, counterbores, countersinks, reamers and carbide burrs. Milling cutters come in B-nose 2-flute series in metric and imperial, and router bits cover the woodworking side.
Threading is the other pillar. Alongside a deep taps range there are complete tap and die sets, tap wrenches, button dies in carbon steel and HSS with matching die stocks, hex die nuts, Coventry style chasers for die heads from a quarter inch to a full inch, thread restorers and screw extractors for fasteners that have given up. For stripped or damaged threads, Powercoil products — coil taps, lokserts and fitting tools — provide the wire-insert repair route.
Beyond the cutting edge, the store stocks the machinery and workholding that make a workshop function: drill presses, bandsaw machines, grinders and linishers, plus lathe and mill accessories such as boring bars (including Zenit bars from Italy), bevel blades and holders, and ER11, ER16 and ER20 collets for milling setups. Angle plates, V-blocks, vices and clamps — including the Bessey range and Hans Tools clamps — handle workholding, while pot magnets and magnetic swarf collectors tidy up the rest.
Hand and power tools round things out. Hikoki and Makita power tools and Makita accessories sit beside Hans Tools sockets and sets, hand tools, pullers and bearing separators. The automotive section covers axle stands, ball joint separators and brake bleeder kits, and air tools, welding, soldering and gas equipment extend the range into fabrication and repair. Measuring is covered by Starrett and Blaze equipment — centre and edge finders, dividers and calipers, centre squares, angle meters and straight edges.
The consumables side is just as complete: abrasives, bandsaw blading and diamond blades, files and chainsaw files, brushware, CRC and Alemlube lubricants, engineers chalk and marking ink, epoxy glues, crimping pliers and insulation tapes, batteries, bulbs and worklights. Safety gear includes ear muffs and plugs, face masks and gloves, and toolboxes and storage keep it all organised.
Tradezone Hornby also thinks about resellers, with merchandiser assortment kits and Champion merchandiser packs, and the site carries a technical data section for reference. For anyone in Christchurch who needs the right cutter, tap or steel section — and wants it from people who deal in these tools every day — Tradezone Hornby on Main South Road is a straightforward place to start.