You might be able to sharpen them by grinding the face depending if there's
enough land. You might try grinding them out bigger with an air die grinder
mounted in the lathe.

"Grant Erwin" wrote in message
...
I got around to inventorying the punches and dies that came with my
'80-ish ironworker. It looks like this unit punched a lot of 3/8"
and 1/2" holes as there are a lot of dies in those sizes that are
very beat up.

Logic says if I have a 3/8" die that is all beat up around the hole,
that I should be able to machine it larger, to make a usable e.g. 1/2"
die. Is this possible? I see that a die is about 11 bucks, so it
isn't worth spending a ton of time on. It's just that I seem to have
about 10 unusable dies, and I'd like to use them.

Grant Erwin


You can grind or turn them. Most ironworker tooling is not highly hardened. Use
carbide or ceramic inserts. I usually just use carbide on ironworker or Roper
Whitney tooling.
Be sure to leave enough land on the die for future sharpening.
This is a good time to set clearances for different thicknesses of metal. You
can take that 3/8 die to .525 or so for 1/8 thick or to .550 for 1/4 thick with
a 1/2 punch..

Be sure to stone off any grinding burrs before punching. They will dull a
freshly sharpened punch or die very quick.

Les