 Results from the first test of the modified dies. These were pressed on the Mini After last week's post, I spent a fair amount of time in the shop adding extra bolt holes around the perimeter of some of our letter/number sets. I brought these into the shop yesterday for another test.
I'm happy to report that these are much improved, but not fully fixed. I ran two different letter dies in the mini to check the results. There is still a small amount of flexing in the aluminum around the center of the mold, which allows some plastic to leak around the center of the letters. While these letters will be salvageable, it is going to require a good bit of cleanup... something that we can't afford to do on every single letter that we make. The next correction will require another order to our friends at SendCutSend. We are going to have a new bottom plate cut from thick steel, at least 1/4". It will have all eight holes located and burned, but since these holes are very slightly tapered, I'll drill them out to the final size on my little drill press. I'm also going to tap these holes for 5/16-18 threads, rather than using nuts on them like we currently use. It's a bit of a pain, especially since I have been plagued by a run of broken taps lately (more on this subject will be coming later... I'm still researching). But having tapped backplates should add a bit to the speed of the process, as it seems like I'm constantly chasing nuts around the floor. A friend, Dave- who has a great deal more machinist experience than I do- suggested a further improvement. By adding a very slight crown or dome to the backplate, we can concentrate the clamping pressure on the center of the mold. We're talking about maybe a few thousands at the most. I can get this with a couple of passes of a flap wheel on a side grinder to the outer two inches or so. It's quite possible that this won't be necessary, and I plan a few test presses first. I'll be sure to post about the results, so stay tuned.
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