Hi everyone. I'm a new member of this forum and could sure appreciate your help.

I work at sheet metal and machining job shop as a QC Inspector/Metrologist. Any free time I have away from my job duties, I help out as an operator on our CNC punch presses.

Last week, we were punching some brackets out of .180 P&O. We had 3 orders of 600 pieces each. Breaking those parts off the punched blank was murder on my hands.

I have a good pair of Craftsman dikes that I'm going to take with me for now. But I was thinking of getting one of sheet metal nibblers or possibly one of those pneumatic powered saws that I could easily fit into one our local air stations.

I can't believe what a monotonous "pain-in-the-butt" it can be to remove microjoints and slivers off of those small parts.

Any suggestions?

Well, hello there! Welcome to the Cove!:bigwave:

As for dikes, being an electrician, I have to be partial to Klein, myself! Maybe that's the problem!:lol::)

Now.. I'm speaking a bit out of ignorance here... but why are you manually having to remove the parts? Why is the CNC not making a deep enough indention?

Now.. I'm speaking a bit out of ignorance here... but why are you manually having to remove the parts? Why is the CNC not making a deep enough indention?

Brad,

Punching sheet metal is a little like cutting cookies - except that you have to leave small joints to hold the parts into the blank so you can remove the blank from the machine.

MysterHK,

If these are small parts - can you make them a slug shute part - then tumble deburr? .180 P&O is brutal stuff to punch, but if they are small, I would look into this option (BTW-saves time, too!)

Hi Brad.

I don't know the answer, but I can definitely find out. I'll try and snap a few digital pictures so that you can see what I'm doing. Maybe you can help me better that way.

Brad,


MysterHK,

If these are small parts - can you make them a slug shute part - then tumble deburr? .180 P&O is brutal stuff to punch, but if they are small, I would look into this option (BTW-saves time, too!)

Hi Carol!

We have 2 Amada Pegas and 3 Amada Vipros CNC Turret Punch Presses. The Pegas have a separate chute for what you mentioned. Unfortunately, those were occupied, punching out some really hot jobs that particular night. I was punching these off the Vipros King which I do not believe have a seperate shute. But I'll have to check that again.

I wish our company had a tumbler. So we have to deburr by hand. But that is a great suggestion.

It definitely is brutal material. We always have to mix Moly-Dee Tapping fluid with the regular kerosene-based cutting oil to lubricate the blanks prior to punching.

I am not familiar with the Vipros, but we have a number of Pegas and an old Coma that we use for the thick stuff. We use straight WD-40 for a lubircant.

I just found out that we do indeed have tumblers. It wasn't until I asked my production manager and he showed them to me.

I didn't realize that "Vibratory" is the same as "tumbler". :frust: