small, primitive Press with cutting and bending capability

[Noel.C]

I know it is only £250 but as of late I have spent close to 2g on
hobby related bits n bobs. Soon though, I'll want to sell off a few
things so I'll get the fly press eventually, then I'll relegate the
Arbour press to minor duties instead :-)

[m_c]

An arbour press would be my choice, however I'd also be checking the required cutting/shearing forces first to make sure I got a big enough one.

Although as John S has said, building a one shot press will be more efficient in the long run, it may be easier to do it in multistages, in terms of constructing the dies.
The dies could be laser cut, however they'd still need finished to tolerance by milling/grinding/polishing, with the cutting edges hardened, tempered then ground to create a durable edge.

[Noel.C]

Hi m_c

I will be working with strips of 1mm aluminium so I dont think im gonna need major force applied
to get a cut out. Surely 1/2 tonne force would do that providing that the dies were of decent
quality.

I do prefer the idea of having seperate dies for the job. Technically, I could put together a
DXF file of a die that would do all three and maybe I will! when I get
the fly press later on. For the mean time though, 3 reasonably durable dies in
tool steel or something similiar will do the job just fine.

My only current concern is how much those dies will cost me, but I'll worry about that at a later time

[Ricardoco]

Hi m_c

I will be working with strips of 1mm aluminium so I dont think im gonna need major force applied
to get a cut out. Surely 1/2 tonne force would do that providing that the dies were of decent
quality.

I do prefer the idea of having seperate dies for the job. Technically, I could put together a
DXF file of a die that would do all three and maybe I will! when I get
the fly press later on. For the mean time though, 3 reasonably durable dies in
tool steel or something similiar will do the job just fine.

My only current concern is how much those dies will cost me, but I'll worry about that at a later time

Looking at your designs it occured to me that the male side of the cutting die could be concave across 1 axis thus allowing it to begin cutting at both end and finishing in the middle thus lowering the cutting force required even further as opposed to bashing through the whole cut at once...if you know what i mean.. lol

[Noel.C]

Looking at your designs it occured to me that the male side of the cutting die could be concave across 1 axis thus allowing it to begin cutting at both end and finishing in the middle thus lowering the cutting force required even further as opposed to bashing through the whole cut at once...if you know what i mean.. lol

Hi ricardoco

I think I understand what you are getting at, only had 3 or 4 minutes there to
try it out in 3d as about to dart of to work here.



So basically, rather then cutting through the entire surface area at once, you
want the force to be focused on a smaller surface area?

Sounds good and if it decreases the strain on the arbor press it might be worth doing.

Cheers
Noel

[Noel.C]

Could anyone give me a rough guestimate as to the probable cost of these male/female
die sets?

They are meant for 1/2 tonne arbour press, measurements wont be right yet because press has not arrived but basically they will be around the 30x30mm except for the female backing plates. I suppose the backing plates could be mild steel and the diestool steel or similiar.

The cut and stamping set would need to have tempered edges.