[TheForge] Making dies for cutting sheet metal?

[Bruce .]

Okay, I think I count the following "votes" in favor of
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dies
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  1
chisel
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      1​

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Forge
​and​
grind
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 1​
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​plasma
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    1
water jet
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  3
laser
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      ​
        4

​... with five people "voting"!

Only one vote for punch and dies -- or maybe 1 and a half.  Okay. on to the
next idea.  (BTW, I was thinking of making punch and dies myself, not laser
cutting them, using Streeter's method or something such.)

The chisel idea is interesting, but I expect it would involve a lot of
clean-up.  It occurred to me on reading this that I might be able to
combine techniques and acheive the end:  Punch a hole, shear to the hole to
make the "raw" tine, then use a smaller punch to form the end of the tine.
I may look into this.

I've tried forging and it works well, but is very slow, and not very
reproducible.  I started making a "die" (really just a support apparatus)
to facilitate forging, but ran into some troubles and decided to
investigate alternative approaches.  I may change my approach and try it
again.

Same for grinding.  If I change my approach as suggested, I might make it
feasible.  (I doubt that combining it with forging would be necessary.)
I tried milling, but I lack a milling machine.  Using a milling attachment
on a lathe, I ran into problems that might not be worth the bother trying
to overcome.  What comes to mind is to  mount a Dremel in the 4-jaw chuck
of the lathe (which would act only as a holder), then mount a stack of
stock in my milling attachment, and have at that with the Dremel.  The
milling attachment provides fairly close control of the motions, thus
compensating for my lousy hand-to-eye coordination.

I have been considering sawing these out using a jeweler's saw -- tedious,
but I can work from a pasted-on drawing and get the result I need.

So much for techniques I can do myself.  On to the ones I'd have to
contract out:

My limited knowledge of plasma cutting suggests it won't produce a clean
enough cut.


Waterjet and laser sound attractive, but I haven't the foggiest idea how to
get started with these.  Any pointers?  Do any firms advertise onesy-twosy
production?

As for the questions asked:
I'm aiming to make the combs from stock between 1/32" and 1/8" (1/16" is a
good choice).  I need at least 7 teeth so am aiming for 8 or more teeth for
now.  Later I might want to go to much larger numbers, but smaller sizes.
For the current design, the teeth would be 1/4" wide and spaced 1/4" apart,
and 2" long, including the complication on the end. The combs must be
reasonably identical -- not rocket science, but they must work together in
the final device, so must be compatible.  I would have trouble achieving
this with hand work, but any ordinary machining approach would be fine.

​Thanks for your input.​


Bruce
NJ