Originally Posted by
Trip59
Wow, ok. So you did nothing to the tooling, no facing, treating, anything else? Not sure if I'll reach a metric assload, or even an imperial assload, but there will be quite a few for sure if all goes as planned.
As far as the punching, I hadn't really thought about incorporating a punch and die, but drilling them shouldn't be too bad, simple jig and clamps and I can run through a stack at once, pre-braking, then set them up and press them after braking to shape.
Question, how many tons was the press you used?
For sheet metal if at all possible I would punch the hole rather than drill it. Getting a burr free hole in sheetmetal with a drill doesn't happen, and it's worse when you drill a stack. You will spend more time and aggravation deburring before the next step. Stainless leaves tough burrs. What size hole do you need? If you have the hole in and can run on a center pin, that will make alignment easy, if your dimple is circular. I had two pins for alignment but a pretty loose fit and no springs, because of the kind of press I was using. The press was an old piston wrist pin press that was retired when we switched to a rod heater for installing wrist pins. There were no labels left on it, and a quick search didn't turn up anything that looked like it. I'm sure it wasn't much considering the way it was made, figure max 10 tons, and probably a lot less. For this job it barely had to work, I would even say you could do it with a good arbor press. The pressure you will need depends on how much deformation your are looking for and how much you need to stretch the metal. If you can avoid sharp edges and steep walls, it will be easy to press and come out looking much nicer.
Long arc, short arc, heliarc and in-the-dark!
Reply With Quote
