Press bending hinge leaves

In 1973, I worked as a setup man in hinge curling department in Amrock Corporation in Rockford Illinois. Machine operators were women doing piecework. The hinge Blank were from continuous coils either steel or brass through automatic punch presses, the blanks were sorted by operators and stacked in a chute at one end of machine with a bar that ran in and out with spring loaded “fingers” to pick up a blank and slide to a preset station where a drill would countersink one of the holes before being transferred to the next drill. After countersinking op, part was transferred to crimping station and would get first form about .060” from end, next station was a carbide half moon shaped ram would drive against the prong causing the curl to be rolled, next station would be broaching cutters to trim the prongs so the 2 halves would fit together. All this was controlled by a shaft at the back of the machine that had cams for each operation. That is where I learned how to sharpen drills by hand. The slower you were, the more complaints from the operators because it was money out of their pockets due to them being piece work. We had a drill sharpener but was much slower than doing by hand, difference between countersink angle and regular drill angle.

Press bending hinge leaves - GIF