Pic of a new hand engraved tool steel die plate.

Comments?

Gary

It's like where's Waldo picture. So much stuff going on. I'm sure I miss a couple of things. Really love this one Gary. What's the size. Dory

Hi Mark,
Good to hear from you.
It's the size of a pocket watch. I plan to make an Expedition case with a Roller Engraving from this die plate.

It will be similar to one of these "Expedition Cases". Nickle Silver.
Thanks for commenting.
Gary



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/22/2014 04:02AM by barnespneumatic.

Keep in mind - this is a "Die Plate", therefore; everything is a negative of the final image.



Gary

Is it deep enough to hold some mentos gum? Dory

The cases are hand hammered. Typically 3/8" - 7/16" inside I think. 2.2 cm. We have the research staff working on obtaining the official size from the net.

If you have a caliper, let me know the thickness. I strony suspect it chould be compatible.

Thks for asking.

Gary

Makes me want to jump into my car and take a drive through the mountains.

Lon



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/22/2014 05:49PM by Bigbore.

That's great Lon,

Hey - when someone has one of these cases - They can just put on their reading glasses and take a medatative drive thru the mountains.

Thanks,

Gary

Looks like a lot of hours went into that, and all before even one piece of salable work gets made with it. If you ever cataloged the man hours that have gone into ALL your tooling, you'd probably keel right over on the spot.

Maybe best not to think about that at this particular moment.

Sean,

We went thru boxes of wrapped dies today. Oiled them and put them in drawers. The absurd amount of skilled labor there, is dumbfounding. I had many a thought while viewing each one being unwrapped. The earliest dies went back to 1980 I think.

So many were used once, or a few times at most. But - there is one of me.

I ran into issues with this new die ... we shall see if I correct it. Story later, if I proceed.

It's always my intention to try to multiply myself, to some degree. Squirrel away some work potential for later years. Of wait - what's that up ahead .... later years? Nutz. Better hurry.

Gotta go.

Gary

That looks really nice. I hope you've ironed out the bugs....

Gary,

That looks incredible! You sure put a lot of effort into the details.Will be interesting to see the negative impression when you roll the silver through the press.

How many hours roughly is that?

Pedro

2 1/2 days .... plus 41 years. .



That's also cut into pre-hardened tool steel.

Gary

" plus 41 years"

Give or take, I suppose.

I'm sure this is obvious to someone but not me... Why cut into pre-hardened tool steel? Can you not harden the die after cutting without damage?

Hi Jerry,

If you note the very tiny detail, imagine that each tiny line has 2 extremely tiny (shallow) edges on each side. Multiply, compound. The entire design is a mass of relatively fragile edges. Fragile as they approach 1,850 degrees F where they would need to soak prior to being quenched, for hardening. An edge that fine, is about like burning steel wool. Easy. You'd ruin all of your detail by heat treating afterwards.

So; the compromise is that the steel blank must be hard enough to stand the shock of isolated stress (say one hundred tons per square inch) on my small press. It must be hard enough to retain detail. It must be possible to engrave it.

With this die - I've faced a host of issues. The design is full of small details. No broad design cuts to relieve stress. Therefore; I actually applied enough pressure to begin to crush the steel, and yet the annealed Nickle Silver would resist the imprint of the rolls.

This one has thrown me back in at the deep end. There are so many nearly impossible requirements within my world. You look up "roller engraving images" and you get mostly really elementary stuff done in the jewelry world (on the starter set ups of about $10k) .... Then you see the building sized half a million dollar machines. Oddly - not a lot of garage set ups.

I have prints. These cases will be "Bi-Metal" cases. Loving the stuff I see in my head. This trip back has about done me in though. Thought I had lost the die a couple of times. Not so.

Thanks for asking Jerry,
Gary