Hello
I trying to figure out how to make a simple press die, I am having a very hard time finding any information at all on how press dies are made and was hoping someone with experience could help me out with some questions or suggestions on where to head with this.
I am attempting to build guitar pickup covers of my own design, the method I have been trying to use with limited success is having two blocks of aluminum that have guide rods to align them and the actual male and female dies made of aluminum epoxy (EpoxAcast 655). I made a dummy of the pickup cover, put it in a cavity in one block and pour the epoxy around it, then remove it, fill the formed cavity with a sheet of 0.02" machinist wax and cast the male die with the epoxy. I then put a 0.02" sheet of annealed brass or nickel silver, have a top plate that screws down onto the sheet then press it in a little Harbor Freight 12 ton press.
This method works surprisingly well...for the first 1 or 2 covers, but then the dies become damaged by stress risers, particularly at the corners, the dies become more and more damaged.
So the epoxy is not strong enough for this application. I am not a skilled enough machinist to manufacture something like the male and female dies that I can get with the epoxy (I have a small Precision Mathews PM25 with a DRO but doing this manually is most likely far outside my capabilities).
Does anyone know how dies like what I'm attempting to build are made? Are they made of steel or aluminum? Are dies like this extremely expensive to have manufactured? Is there some form in the die I am lacking that would alleviate the stress risers? Is there a stronger epoxy that anyone knows of that might work? Diamant Moglice maybe? Would I be able to cut costs if I learned a CAD program in which I could send a file to a CNC machine shop? Is something like this achievable for under a grand?
Thanks
I trying to figure out how to make a simple press die, I am having a very hard time finding any information at all on how press dies are made and was hoping someone with experience could help me out with some questions or suggestions on where to head with this.
I am attempting to build guitar pickup covers of my own design, the method I have been trying to use with limited success is having two blocks of aluminum that have guide rods to align them and the actual male and female dies made of aluminum epoxy (EpoxAcast 655). I made a dummy of the pickup cover, put it in a cavity in one block and pour the epoxy around it, then remove it, fill the formed cavity with a sheet of 0.02" machinist wax and cast the male die with the epoxy. I then put a 0.02" sheet of annealed brass or nickel silver, have a top plate that screws down onto the sheet then press it in a little Harbor Freight 12 ton press.
This method works surprisingly well...for the first 1 or 2 covers, but then the dies become damaged by stress risers, particularly at the corners, the dies become more and more damaged.
So the epoxy is not strong enough for this application. I am not a skilled enough machinist to manufacture something like the male and female dies that I can get with the epoxy (I have a small Precision Mathews PM25 with a DRO but doing this manually is most likely far outside my capabilities).
Does anyone know how dies like what I'm attempting to build are made? Are they made of steel or aluminum? Are dies like this extremely expensive to have manufactured? Is there some form in the die I am lacking that would alleviate the stress risers? Is there a stronger epoxy that anyone knows of that might work? Diamant Moglice maybe? Would I be able to cut costs if I learned a CAD program in which I could send a file to a CNC machine shop? Is something like this achievable for under a grand?
Thanks