Press machine top stop. This terminology had been widely used among the Japanese precision press manufacturers during the 70s. Till today, it’s a very important factor to consider when you’re purchasing new punch press machine. It determines the quality of the product produced from these machines. Top stop is the position of the machine’s...
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I discovered this interesting function in AutoCAD 2007 accidentally. If you are tired with all the icons and pull down menu in AutoCAD, or you want to maximized the working space in AutoCAD. You can simply click the clean screen icon, which located at the lower right corner of the screen, or type CTRL+0. This...
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In my previous blog, I wrote something about drawing lubricants and it selection for drawing manufacturing process. Beside lubrication, the drawing speed is another vital factor greatly affecting the successful rate of the deep drawing process. In general, plain push through draw dies can be operated at higher linear velocities ( faster drawing speeds) than drawing dies equipped with drawn ring or pressure pads. However, the...
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Some readers from my Tool design site wrote to me, asking what is Aluminum 5052-H32? What are all the numbers representing? The first 4 digits are representing the grade or the type of Aluminum. The Capital H is representing the type of tempering the material undergoes and the last digit is the hardness of the Aluminum. In this example,...
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In any press tool design, the first thing to consider is how to determine the flat blank length of the folded component. I won’t go into the boring theory of how the material behaves during bending and how the individual material property affects the length and spring back. To be frank, I hate all these theories! During the bending...
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A friend from Australia wrote to me asking for assistance on one of his project. He had a tool, which used a pressure pad to flatten a Ø1″ tube followed by punching a ¼” square hole on it. The tool used the punched slug from the top thickness as the punch for the bottom...
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Lubrication is of two main types: The Fluid and The Boundary. Fluid lubrication – This type of lubrication commonly used in bearing system and seldom observed in sheet metal forming. Boundary lubrication is commonly used in most metal forming operation because of the high pressures and low speeds involved. The main function of a boundary...
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In a progressive die, shaving is a secondary process to shear a previously cut edge to produce a smooth and straight edge with minimum breakaway. This metal stamping process usually applies on highly precision dies with precision clearances; the finished quality is comparable to or better than fine blanking. In the shaving operation, the amount of material being...
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Somewhere last year, we had a simple progressive tool designed by one of our junior designers. It’s a very simple “U” bracket, 0.8 mm thick cold roll steel with both sides bent up to 1.6mm height. No one really paid attention to it just because this item is too simple to draw any attention...
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