[TheForge] Making dies for cutting sheet metal?

[Peter Fels & Phoebe Palmer]

The press would be perfect Bruce.
You might look into buying a die shoe or die set setup to control registration...I have a 4 post one that's about 8" tall.
The dies bolt in place and the top slides up and down on the 1" posts reasonably accurately.
It would greatly increase the utility of your press.
Another solution is to build registration guides into your die..several ways to do that.
Alternately, you could forge out your stock to the necessary taper, cut it to the right lengths, stack the pieces up and tack weld them to hold them steady and use an abrasive or band saw to cut each tine in all the pieces at once. Abrasive cutting discs come in a variety of different widths, including 1/4"
A very simple die could add the curves.

On Mar 14, 2014, at 5:22 PM, Bruce . wrote:

I've been working on a project, and I'm trying to find the best way to make
one part.  The part is something like comb in appearance (so that's what I
call it) but the 2"-long "tines" are 1/4" wide and spaced at 1/4".  The
ends of the tines are thinner and curve.  Each tine is exactly like the
next.  The whole comb could be made from sheet steel no thicker than
1/16".  I need at least four, and probably eight of these combs.

I've considered a number of ways of manufacturing the tines, then welding
or brazing them to the comb back, but I'm now leaning away from this
approach.

At the moment, I'm thinking of cutting these combs of sheets of 1/16" or
thicker steel (depending what I can cut with a jeweler's saw).  This would
be tedious and time consuming, but there are worse jobs in the world and
I'm sure it would work.

The best alternative I can thing to this idea is to use a punch and die to
cut the tines.  I can drive the punch using my 20-ton forging press.  It's
the die itself that is the problem.  It would basically be a 1/4" width,
rounded somewhat on one end, but with a complication at about 1/75" from
that rounded end, making the punch look slightly like a lower-case "b".  In
principle, the job could be done with two or three punches of simpler form,
used sequentially.  If so,

So my question for this group is, how feasible is it to make such tools
myself?  The only text I have on the subject is Don Streeter's book,
"Practical Blacksmithing", in which he makes it sound easy enough, but
doesn't give explicit instructions -- only a general description.  It seems
to me that a lot of effort could go into making these tools -- which would
be fine if they work, but a PITA if they don't.  Sizing of punch and die
would be critical, and Streeter seems to address this by making the die
after making the punch, and using the punch to help make the die.
Alignment of punch and die would also be critical, and Streeter doesn't
seem to say much about that -- I assume because he relies on his machine to
hold the alignment once punch and die are installed.  I'd have a tougher
time with that on my forging press.  Hence, while the idea is attractive, I
expect it might prove to be one of those never-ending projects.

Thoughts?

Bruce
NJ
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