I see what he means by having the saw at an angle, which would be different for different thicknesses of sawblade and metal, and which would result in the space between the mating dies being extremely small. To saw accurately like that would certainly need a jig, and I expect someone has already designed that: it wouldn't be too difficult. But I wasn't really interested in making shaped bits of paper or foil; I needed to stamp small shapes out of 0.5mm thick annealed sheet sterling and my gadgets certainly do that - I can prove it!
Hi John…At no point did I mean to imply that you could not do
what you said. If I have offended you, please accept my
apologies. My reason for provididing additional is
that many people do not work well from text and prefer a sketch.
My website provides that sketch (several actually) as well as a
photograph of a blanking die.
The reason for sawing at at angle is pretty obvious and you
immediately recognised it. By using an angle, the burr is
completely eliminated and there is no clean-up necessary. You get
a very crisp edge. I mentioned that paper or foil could be cut
with this method. The same die would also cut the material that
you are cutting. The only thickness limitation on a blanking die
is that you cannot cut material that is thicker than the die. For
example, a fellow that I know is cutting spur rowels (the star
looking thing on the back of a cowboy’s boot) out of 3/16" thick
steel using a blanking die. He sawed the die out of 3/16" thick
tool steel and heat treated it. To saw the die at an angle does
utilize a jig to hold the die blank at the specific angle, and
yes it has been designed and once again is shown on my website,
under the section “Metalsmithing Tools”.
So, to sum up, the units I described do work well for small quantities of small items. They need the small burr to be removed and a small amount of general tidying up which I find, takes little time with a handpiece sanding disc. And yes, they would be quite useless for production runs.
Yes, but with a little bit more effort, you could eliminate a
lot of time consuming deburring. I don’t know what metals you
work with, but if semi-precious, fines don’t bring much back from
the refiner.
If professional engineers don't like the units to be called blanking dies, well, that's OK by me, I don't really mind. But whatever you like to call them, take my word for it; given the obvious limitations, they DO work.
I am not a professional engineer. I really don’t care what
people call me as long as it is not late for lunch. What you have
made and described is what I would call a blanking die. It
obviously works. All that I am trying to say is that with a
little refining, you could wind up with crisp edge parts that
would not require any clean-up. Please take a look at the
website. I am constantly adding new techniques and tips to it
that are in the “learn” section.
Take care
Lee Marshall
Bonny Doon Engineering http://www.bonnydoonengineering.com