Ceilidh ... Peace Sign Die

Hydraulic Die Forming Discussion Group

Peace Sign Die

This was commissioned by a customer and I was in a stubborn mood so I decided to MAKE it work. The real difficulty with a donut hole die like this is the need for extreme precision in locating the tiny pieces that cut the multiple holes in the mandala. Any of you having been subjected to the donut die part of a workshop will be familiar with the basic process of match-drilling the hole cutter pieces and a backplate together, screwing those pieces to said hinge/backplate and then attaching the normal blanking die plate to this secondary hinge plate , resulting in a compound blanking/hole cutting die. Ugh!!.

Tricky enough, with parts (holes) of a manageable size, big enough
for little size 4-40 screws. This die was nowhere close to being big enough for that method. Take a good look at the lower picture
and see the tiny hole cutter pieces set onto the backplate, which is already drilled with holes for the pins in the stripper plate (shown to the right of the die in the upper photo). The two larger wedges are
located with three pins each, using .045" drill holes and nickel silver wire pins. The two smaller pie slices are done with three holes each also, using a #68 (.031") drill and 20 ga. (.032") wire pins. Nevermind that the pin is "bigger than the hole" , the holes get reamed and/or the wire gets stretched.

What I had to be very meticulous about is getting the wire to fit the holes as snugly as possible, and with three as the minimum number is required for true location this way.
I stretched a piece of .051" (16 ga.) wire down (my drawplate sucks and doesn't have .001" graduations) to about .047". Actually , I had a stretch (no pun, really!) of about 6" that went from .045" to .048"
that I cut the pins from, using about 2" of it that was just right.

This picture was taken immediately before soldering, and is laid out on a soldering board I had applied some flux to. The pins are crammed down into the board just enough to hold things in place. I used easy flow 45 from ijs, which melts at about 1150 deg. F. , lowest of the brazing solders.

The stripper pins are stainless steel screws , size 2-56 by 5/16",
with their little heads ground even littler. The first one , with nylon screws , lost 3 screws just opening up the die the first time. Just too small to be of much use in that material.This die went very smoothly , in part because this alignment method worked better than the old screw type, and as you see, it actually works!!. Some slight
deformation incurred during extraction, but not as bad as some, and less than most.

Dar
www.sheltech.net

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[ PeaceDie.jpg ] Peace Sign Donut Die

[ This message was edited on Sat Apr 20 by the author ]

Sat Apr 20