Hi Elkka
I don’t recall your post, so this is probably out of sync with the
original question. I make nearly all my own tools with steel and wood
and try to obtain my goals with what I have on hand. Some times I
think there is nearly as much creativity in making the tools as the
jewelry.
http://onlinemetals.com/ can provide the materials at a reasonable
cost and in smaller lots. They also have very good background
on the qualities of the products they carry. 1018 would
be “ok” to feed between your rollers (with padding just incase of
trapped grit, test to preference although, I have ran bailing wire
with no ill effects to my rollers, they are very hard), 1018 is mild
and can be hardened to a small degree and there are materials which
will put a very good surface hardening on it, you can generally get
this from welding supply houses. For material to make your dies and
stuff from for repeated use, tool steel can be obtained from
http://www.jlindustrial.com/ (tool steel I would not run unprotected
it will mar your rollers), again the prices are very reasonable. I
suspect you have a kiln of some type, and that will handle your heat
treating requirements, or a torch will also work, but for long
lasting dies, and good even treatment of pieces, I prefer the oven.
Another thing to consider, bolts, I use grade 8 depending on how
hard you need to make dandy dies and punches. I would not use the
cheap bolts they do not form well or smoothly and deform easily.
Hardened bolts can be had in local supply houses as small as #4 up to
2 inch in diameter and 10 to 12 inches long. You may have to treat
them before fabrication, and then re-harden them after words, but it
will work and for small things it is very handy and a large range of
sizes, I leave the heads on it is easier to hit unless it is going
into a press. Another thing is local steel suppliers, they will have
rolled and plate in nearly every dimension, use the cold rolled
products, hot rolled is very scaly and holds dirt and grit very well
which will muck up your jewelry tools.
Etching steel, you bet, check sites on the web for etching solutions
or you can get pre-made. Also, these guys
http://www.photofabrication.com/ did work for a Micro house I used to
work for and they were able to make some dies for us that were superb
and extremely tight tolerance. This is a good paper on salts etching
http://www.artbag.dk/ge/uk/updates/saline-etch.pdf, with recipes,
there are a lot of others. The salts are safer than the acid, though
still hazardous, Ferric chloride can be obtained from Radio Shack or
other electronic supply in small quantities.
Yes your band saw will cut metal, and they do make blades for them,
look in the yellow pages for saw shops to make a custom blade(for
mine about $6.00 each), or you can get pre-made from J&L and a lot of
other sources. If it is a wood saw you will have to reduce the speed
to the neighborhood of about 320 to 600 IPM, Bimetal will last the
best, but hardened blades are OK and cheaper. For small stuff, just
get a metal blade and feed sloooooowwwwwww, heat is the problem here,
the teeth strip right off the blade. Do not try to hold the part by
hand you will get a pinched finger and a broken blade. However, two
vice grips at each end do work well when rested on the table. If you
need to change pulleys on your band saw to reduce the speed, Ace
Hardware sells pulleys and mandrels (to make a speed reducer) which
will works well, but is time consuming to make but once done, you
will have both in one machine.
Last but not least, have you thought of etching or embossing a blank
roller?
