Novice with a Uni-Punch and a Habor Freight 6-ton press

[mccutter]

Originally Posted by RED caddy

+1 on the air over setup. I would use taper pins to preserve alignment, (frame and die's) they better resist shear forces that would try to push the frame out of square.
RED

+1 on this. 12T air/hyd. press with some mods for efficiency. Mount dies in a frame with pins for alignment and maybe some springs to help release. (pics are overkill examples) This should work good for 1/8" and under.

1"dia. x 3/8" is a pretty stout piece to be punching--how many of those will you be doing? Maybe consider drilling them or finding a shop to do them for you. More info is needed...

[Dave Lee]

I remember those Uni-Punch units from my toolmaking days. For those not familiar, they're like an erector set for dies. When you look at the catalog and the examples of how they're used, they look like the be-all, end-all of quick and dirty tooling. That is, of course, until you try to make it fit your application. Ain't it always the way?

If you have a part to make and there is lots of room between holes and notches, ect., they're great. Especially, for a small outfit, with a limited tooling budget. However, if the engineers are trying to put 10 pounds of pucky in a 5 pound sack, (as is the usual), you won't be able to get the units close enough, to get all your holes in, in one go. You'll have to punch all that you can in one set-up and then reconfigure the punching units for phase two of the production and run all the parts through again, to get the rest of the holes.

Of course, if you have your heart set on a one-hit operation, Uni-Punch and other "erector set" tooling manufacturers will be more than happy to make custom punching units for you. The problem is, when you're all said and done, it will cost $10,000 for what you could have done with hard tooling, for $2000
That's 1988 pricing, folks. Been there, done that, got a tee-shirt.


Dave

[digger doug]

If you would narrow down your location a bit more.....

Craigslist , chautauqua N.Y. has a guy selling a 5 ton OBI press for
cheap for awhile now.

Buffalo as well will get some mechanical flywheel presses 5-10 tons
for scrap price from time to time.

FWiW I tried 16 ga in a unipunch frame I had (oddball d-slot punch that it came with)
with my 20 ton H.F. air powered jack in my press.....

Really went "bang" and would not want to do that too much.