"Gunner Asch" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 24 Mar 2010 23:21:06 -0700, "Bob La Londe"
wrote:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TXyDjdfrX4

It's a run what you brung kinda project. Took 6.5 hours to mill the top
plate. Only took about 2 to make the bottom plate. It takes 28 minutes
per
run to cut ten sheets plus a sacrificial one. I jacked up the speed and
cut
them at about 17 minutes, but the quality went to heck.

Obvious a vinyl plotter would have been better and just feed it some
velum,
but this works and provides a really professional result.

... and I have this machine. LOL.




Cool!

But..why didnt you simply make a die stamp and press em out?

I tried a simple hammer punch at first and I was very unhappy with the
results. Probably my available metals. I wasn't sure how to go about
making a stamping plate that would work. I dunno know though. The hammer
punch was made from the driveshaft of an outboard lower unit.

Even an arbor press would have done the job and you would have knocked
out one lable with each fast stroke?

I've got a hydraulic press. Maybe if I saw a stamping plate setup in
operation I could figure out how to make one, although the way I picture it
in my mind I would need to make three detailed pieces to make it work.
Relief plate, guide/clamp, & punch plate. All three would need to have all
buttons machined. I could write the code after some experimentation now in
a reasonable time to cut each piece, but it takes a lot of time, and after
my hammer punch experiment I wasn't sure I wanted to spend 6+ hours
machining each piece. And I am thinking atleast the punch plate would need
to be hardened.

This is a small project. I may never need to do any more of them after this
job, but I will save the plates and the code(s) on a mem card with them.
Ten years from now I'll look at the two plates and laugh about how silly I
was to do it that way.