Disc Die Punch

[editor@glue-it.com]

I was making buttons from 0.7mm copper sheet by cutting them out with tin-snips, drilling two holes, sanding them and then enamelling them.

However, I soon had complaints that whilst the colours were great they weren't round.

So, I made a die punch for my small 1/2 ton arbor press.

There are essentially three parts to this tool:

1. Lower alignment spigot – here you can see it bolted to the lower plate on the press.
2. Upper cutting tool die – here it is upside down so you can see the cutting edge.
3. Lower cutting tool die – this is the tube and this sits over the lower spigot.

The die is in 3 parts as this allows me to remove the tube and push the parts through and out. Being a tube it holds quite a few parts before I need to remove it and push them through.

The punch and top edge of the tube are hardened using case hardening, I use the EKP case hardening and it works really well.