How to intentionally make slightly rough surface for better part grip?
Making a drawing die with more curves on one side than the other so thinking about how to keep the blank from pulling to that side. I do have a way to clamp the sheet metal to the face of the ram but also wanting to make the face and maybe the edge radius slightly rough to get a better grip. The metal is prepainted aluminum and don't want to mar the surface although it ends up being an inside surface so slight imperfections are ok. Ideas I have had are gluing some very fine sand paper to the face or running a fly cutter over the surface with the cutting bit oriented to dig into the surface slightly. Maybe do this before or after final surfacing? I have read that a thread mill is sometimes used on the inside of optical tubes to make a less smooth surface which led to the fly cutter idea. For the edge radius I was planning to do that with a corner radius tool but now thinking the small ridges from multiple passes with a ball end mill might be a plus.
Re: How to intentionally make slightly rough surface for better part grip?
Another possibility is bead/shell/sand blasting. The material is 4140 PH so shell blasting isn't likely to do much but maybe some other blasting. The shop that made some embossing dies for text forms with mild steel did that to knock off the sharp edges - not the same reason for the process but the finish might work for the current need.