Any Metal Stamper out there?

[Gabegmg]

Hi guys
I wanted to know if any of you know any metal stamper.
I need to build custom baseplates (no vintage nonsense) and the chinese metals are not always nice looking.
Any info would be pretty much appreciated.

Gabriel

[jrdamien]

Hi guys
I wanted to know if any of you know any metal stamper.
I need to build custom baseplates (no vintage nonsense) and the chinese metals are not always nice looking.
Any info would be pretty much appreciated.

Gabriel

I can only say "Good Luck!" to you. I was on a similar search and I never found an affordable option for custom baseplates. Of course "affordable" is relative...

[J M Fahey]

"Any" stamper?
The stamper himself is the least of your problems .... do you have the set of dies for cutting and punching?

How many do you need?
I have my metal parts stamped on my own dies and minimum runs are around 800/1000 pieces ... and they grumble about that, typical runs are 5000 or more.

[David King]

Do a search on here for custom baseplates or just baseplates. You can do your own stamping at home for the price of a die or two and a 5 or 10 ton stamping machine that you can pickup on Ebay/craigslist. Count your fingers when you're done.

[WolfeMacleod]

Do a search on here for custom baseplates or just baseplates. You can do your own stamping at home for the price of a die or two and a 5 or 10 ton stamping machine that you can pickup on Ebay/craigslist. Count your fingers when you're done.

I narrowly missed out on a 50-ton hydraulic press at an estate sale last weekend for $450.
But I did pick up a $2700 Enco mill for $800 =)

[Mick Bailey]

I built my own hydraulic press. Only 8 tons, but it will form metal just fine with my own dies. Making tooling to actually stamp out a shape is involved and I rely on other techniques and equipment to get my initial 'blank'. There are prototyping presses that can be used for limited production runs that cut standard shapes - corner notchers/radius cutters/hole punches - I have some tooling from one of those that I can mount up, as well as a folding machine and various manual shears.

Production tooling is a different matter; even a basic custom shape can be expensive to get the dies made, and all dependent on how many operations are needed to produce the final part. Sometimes the tooling needs a number of die parts that are switched to carry out different operations. Someone has to design the tooling as well as design the process steps. There aren't too many shapes that can be carried out in a single-stroke operation to cut the blank and form it. Then there's any threading to consider.

All I can add to this is your baseplates will be enormously expensive. The cost of that time, plus tooling, plus the stamper's profit, will be embedded in every unit. That's before you add anything of your own profit on top.

[Thoriated Tungsten]

Has any of you been looking at getting base plates cut/punched/drilled to order using a water jet 'milling machine' operating from a CAD layout? Friend of mine runs a machine shop, and they practically no longer do their own sheet metal work, not even for one-offs. Not sure what it cost though, so it may not be cost effective for amps.

[Mick Bailey]

Water jet, CNC nibbling or laser leaves you with a blank that needs press tooling to form into the final shape. I've even had some precision plasma work done in 1.5mm steel that gave a nice finish.

Maybe there's a possibility of finding someone to cut the blanks at low-cost and end up with a pile of decent blanks in nickel or whatever. Then make the press tools to form the final shape. When I lived in Australia there were a few small-scale metal stamping businesses that cut me a pile of blanks at reasonable cost (not for pickups though) and I did the press work. I did have to buy a lot more than I needed to make it worthwhile for them.

[David King]

If your main concern is the finish on the available baseplates then by all means start with a vibratory deburring tool which can make the shittiest parts look great in a day or two.
Harborfreight sells a cheap one but there are usually a few on craigslist and dozens on ebay. They get used for cleaning up brass shell casings by folks who insist on reloading their own ammo.