Foil Die Lockup
New year - new batch of questions. We want to expand our foil offerings. Part of the issues we have is getting good setup and alignment. Currently use mag or copper dies locked up with bunter posts. I see pic of work being done with dies screwed onto the hot plate. With have yet to use use any heat tape only the bunter posts. At times the bunter post can be a little hard to work with. Can anyone offer any advise
I always drill and countersink my dies to be screwed onto the heater. It is a little bit of extra work but I have my die room on site. I have even fixed dies by screwing them down on a heater when they have been warped by amateurs prying hot taped dies off heaters.
The only disadvantage is that register adjustments require movement of the heater when the guides are at their limits.
Easy to hot change dies when they are screwed to heater, no waiting for everything to cool as when using heat bond tape.
Good luck
Mike - Thanks for the feed back. I always respect and learn from what you have to say. We now use bunter posts and no heat tape. We felt 2 screws on a small die would be enough but we were not sure. We were also wondering if a small amount of heat bond tape and one screw could offer the same security value. The reason I ask is I know a lot of folks use only the heat tape and even though it is common that bothers me. I see a die with tape only coming loose and going who knows where. We felt if we had issues drilling 2 holes is proper spacing by at least one hole aligned and some tape we can forgo the need for the bunter post. I know I am most likely over thinking this a little, but I want a system I can depend on. It was like the time I dropped a screw diver into the flywheel while changing the typan and packing. The screw diver flew past my head. I now turn off the press, I learned by doing. I few inches to the left and I might have been hit in the head with screw driver, bad way to ruin a good screw driver ( head is pig headed and hard as a rock)
The few times that I had to use a customer supplied die that was the bare minimum floor size and no room for mounting holes I did as follows. Use bond tape to get die on heater then screw down a few pieces of brass to contain the die and prevent die movement during run. If there is room for only one mounting hole a combination of one screw to heater some bond tape and a few pieces of brass to contain the die.
It may seem like a lot of work but worth it if you charge for it and it does work out better for the client in the long run. Example below a client went elsewhere for a lower price the register was crap the job was to be re ran by me to meet a deadline quite a bit of extra work and cost to fix a warped die and get the job completed.
Stampers that use bonding tape and commercial register are amateurs but useful to teach clients that you get what you pay for.
Thank you Mike, good info. Now we just need to do it but I think we are better prepared than in the past.