Need Help!- How to dowel die and punches into die set?

[kevh]

Hi Guys

I have a couple of simple washer type dies i am making a different size for 30mm o/d 6mm i/d , unusual bit is the the Monel 400 40micron mesh its pressing out !(cutting clearance next to nothing!!)


My prob is not quite sure how to dowel thru with drills and reamers etc as the tooling is hardened and the die set is soft , so ill dowel one side and tighten the other side when located on each other but then im not sure??


Thanks for any help

Cheers Kev

[juergenwt]

Since you have a line to line condition it is very easy. Mount your die (or your punch)
with screws and tighten. Let's say you have 3/8 dowel pins - use a 3/8 drill to spot the dowel holes from your die to the die set. Just spot and than use a drill 1/64 smaller to drill thru the die set. Use a .3748 dowel pin reamer and ream thru the die and the die set.

Line up you punch (or die) using the mounted die (or punch) as a guide. Make sure you use parallels to keep the components (punch) straight and bring down the top of the set. Clamp the heel of the punch to the die set, remove and transfer the screw holes. After tapping - mount the punch to the top (do not tighten the screws) and bring it down onto the die. Make sure the punch enters the die and tighten the screws. After you are satisfied with the fit - see if it will cut paper all around evenly- remove the top, spot the dowel holes with a 3/8 drill, drill thru with a drill 1/64 smaller and ream.

[kevh]

Hi juergenwt

Thanks for your reply

That sounds a good method with the slightly smaller reamer to go thru the hardened block first without touching but then do you need to polish down the dowel that ammount for it to go in ( or a bigger hammer ) or does it tend to cut slightly bigger.

Thanks again for your help

Cheers Kev

[kwhizz]

Originally Posted by kevh Hi Guys I have a couple of simple washer type dies i am making a different size for 30mm o/d 6mm i/d , unusual bit is the the Monel 400 40micron mesh its pressing out !(cutting clearance next to nothing!!) My prob is not quite sure how to dowel thru with drills and reamers etc as the tooling is hardened and the die set is soft , so ill dowel one side and tighten the other side when located on each other but then im not sure?? Thanks for any help Cheers Kev

So.....Let me get this straight........you are building a Die with almost "0" clearance and you don't know how to put a dowel hole in...........LOL

Ken

[kevh]

Ok Ken , very funny i know

I have made made a lot of precision tooling , but tend to buy in the soft bits with pillars and pockets already in , or wire erode dowels/location , just wanted to find out the traditional way of doing it as this is a fairly simple job, but might still end up wire edming the bottom die and die set when locked in position.

Gettin the precisie position thru a hardened block was what was worrying me as dowels are usually plus tolerance.

Cheers Kev

[juergenwt]

Kevh- do NOT polish the dowel pin. If you ream with a dowel pin reamer (they are .0002 below the nominal size) your pin will fit perfectly.

[MrWild]

Does the hardened steels have dowel holes now? If not, you have some serious problems ahead of you. Reamers do not cut hardened steels. You need to jig grind the dowel holes in your die steels if they are not there. If you try to run a reamer through hard steel, you will resize the reamer into useless junk. Die steels should be drilled and reamed before heat treat. If the hole closes up from heat treatment, they are lapped to size.

[ironlung29]

Originally Posted by juergenwt Since you have a line to line condition it is very easy. Mount your die (or your punch) with screws and tighten. Let's say you have 3/8 dowel pins - use a 3/8 drill to spot the dowel holes from your die to the die set. Just spot and than use a drill 1/64 smaller to drill thru the die set. Use a .3748 dowel pin reamer and ream thru the die and the die set. Line up you punch (or die) using the mounted die (or punch) as a guide. Make sure you use parallels to keep the components (punch) straight and bring down the top of the set. Clamp the heel of the punch to the die set, remove and transfer the screw holes. After tapping - mount the punch to the top (do not tighten the screws) and bring it down onto the die. Make sure the punch enters the die and tighten the screws. After you are satisfied with the fit - see if it will cut paper all around evenly- remove the top, spot the dowel holes with a 3/8 drill, drill thru with a drill 1/64 smaller and ream.

If the ring is already hard I would use this method but first mount the hard ring to a soft steel plate with a nest for repeatable position of the hard ring. Like a 1" thick 1018 plate with a 1/8" deep pocket to align the ring. Then drill and tap for mounting and the dowels into the soft steel plate.

If your feeling fancy you could just directly nest the hard ring into the die set and not use dowels or sub plate at all. It's the way I like to make all of our precision blanking and peircing die sets. I machine the tool steel parts soft to near size and put all the mounting holes in. Then I have the steel hardened and finish the parts to size with ceramic/diamond tools. Finally nest the parts directly into the die set. Probably the best result if you can pull it off.


Good luck...

[juergenwt]

Thanks Ironlung. I was assuming he had already mounted the ring on a back up plate. Thanks for noticing.
Now if I had to make a good quality washer die I would prefer a compound die for good quality parts. But that could be expensive and it would require someone with more experience as a die maker.The question being asked by kevh makes me think that this is not for him. No offense to kevh.