Homepin now shipping LICENCED Hankin cocktail tables!!

[Homepin]

Picked up the stamping die for the corner glass retainers this afternoon. You can see the test parts pressed from (rusty) scrap 1mm steel sheet. This die is a very complex arrangement with springs and rubber bumps and about 15 seperate pieces. It stamps the shape and the four holes in one hit. I don't know what it weighs but I couldn't pick it up on my own without quite a struggle so I'm guessing about 25kg?

The same place will now make a folding die to bend the four flanges down then we will have a small hand operated press to give the brackets their final curve before sending them off to be powder coated or plated. There is a lot more to a simple corner bracket than most realise (me included).

[Greg]

Common mike, spend a couple of dollars and look after your workers

Red

yes look after your workers… and you can have the same sort of manufacturing that we enjoy in Australia…..none

[swinks]

Picked up the stamping die for the corner glass retainers this afternoon. You can see the test parts pressed from (rusty) scrap 1mm steel sheet. This die is a very complex arrangement with springs and rubber bumps and about 15 seperate pieces. It stamps the shape and the four holes in one hit. I don't know what it weighs but I couldn't pick it up on my own without quite a struggle so I'm guessing about 25kg?

The same place will now make a folding die to bend the four flanges down then we will have a small hand operated press to give the brackets their final curve before sending them off to be powder coated or plated. There is a lot more to a simple corner bracket than most realise (me included).

Looks good, and agree with you there is alot involved in what appears to be a simple part, as in my last job I learnt alot about dies and the design possibilities and constraints of the tool room and they were using 10 tonne up to 60 tonne presses stamping 1mm through to 10mm plate. When you do your next one where possible consider a 2 stage stamp die that could punch in stage 1 and follow through with bends to save on a manufacturing process. The limits will be - it would be very hard to achieve a 90 degree bend but could achieve lesser angles.

[dealers choice]

It already looks like the specialised machinery,tooling,seperate work stations etc are going to take up a fair bit of room. by the way Mike, iif Nino visits youll have to get all of your employees to wear crocks instead of thongs to make him feel at home. :

[ddstoys]

These tools must take so long to produce and must be so perfect people are amazing what they can do

[Retropin]

Looks like its all mild steel with maybe an aluminium head.. always nice to see an engineers work

[ddstoys]

Looks like its all mild steel with maybe an aluminium head.. always nice to see an engineers work

Hahaha yes amazing they can get two moulds made with that precision I can't even build a wooden box that joins neatly lol.   You will see soon Gav lmfao

[Retropin]

ill fitting wooden box not here yet.. that has surprised me!

[Homepin]

The die is cut from solid blocks of tool steel, no aluminium (wish it was - I might be able to actually lift it  ).

You can imagine what it cost..........

[ddstoys]

So I'm guessing tool steel is very very solid if so how the hell do they carve out the cavity for the parts then make an identical but inverted mould for the other.   I'm scratching my head...    And even in china that kind of work would be damn damn expensive wouldn't be to many people offering that service

[Homepin]

So I'm guessing tool steel is very very solid if so how the hell do they carve out the cavity for the parts then make an identical but inverted mould for the other.   I'm scratching my head...    And even in china that kind of work would be damn damn expensive wouldn't be to many people offering that service

Next time I visit the place I'll get some videos - the steel is cut using a super fine wire that must be made from 'God knows what' and it "saws" through the steel like butter - amazing to watch.

[swinks]

the process of intricate parts is generally (electro-discharge) wire cut in which the wire is generally on a spool and very slowly moved from one reel to another, then / or some milling (manual of cnc) to factions of a mm and then surface ground to hundredths of a mm. Something like that in Aus would be around $10k - $15k depending on the market and work slots available. We were doing small ones right up to 600mm W x 1000mm L x 500mm H ones weighing up to 1.5-2 tonne and costing up to $60-70k. Then depending on the press and feed line (manual or automatic) you could press anything from 1 - 45 parts per minute but they can go up 60 a minute on a modern in feed press. cool stuff. The metal is also high grade tool steel as it has to be a few grades higher than the metal it will stamp out and at times hardened. Aluminium or mild steel components would go blunt in no time but a thick bolster (base plates) can be mild steel if thick enough (so not to deform) to hold all the critical stamping components.

The tool room where I worked made 75 of the press tools and serviced 95% of them so somethings are still done in Aus and we made 3-4 new tools a year and serviced them every 40 hours as they would punch up to 15000 units a shift (from generally 3mm thick black steel which is a little more hard wearing compared to oiled steel and these were generally a few grades higher than mild steel)

[Homepin]

The second stamping die was finished today - it folds the four sides of the stamped bracket:





Yes, Chinese work boots - I know - it's been belting down with rain and my only pair of runners are soaked - I would buy new ones but there is NOTHING available here in size 11......I have given up looking.



....and this is what it turns out after stamping:







The last die is being made now to make the final bend - the curved bend around the corner - then I can run off a batch and have them chromed.

Again a huge amount of work for what initially seems like a very simple corner bracket!

[Strangeways]

I've had three customers ask me about a cocktail table this week. Hurry Up !

I hope there is a run of CRT models. There's no LCD that looks half as good.

Multigame - I have a couple of converted Galaxian boards which are "multigame" - Galaxian, Moon Cresta and UFO. But they are only changed by the operator switching the game off and flicking a switch. The first "muliboard" where the player could select was Ghost Muncher / Uniwars. I wonder if Mike remembers those very cool cabinets !

[Homepin]

I've had three customers ask me about a cocktail table this week. Hurry Up !

I hope there is a run of CRT models. There's no LCD that looks half as good.

Multigame - I have a couple of converted Galaxian boards which are "multigame" - Galaxian, Moon Cresta and UFO. But they are only changed by the operator switching the game off and flicking a switch. The first "muliboard" where the player could select was Ghost Muncher / Uniwars. I wonder if Mike remembers those very cool cabinets !

 I sure do - we used to make the conversions in Brisbane for many of the early 2 and 3 game "multiboards" - the very first one I remember doing was Scramble but I forget what it converted to ???? We used to double up the ROMs and wire a switch to the chip select pins - very bodgy but it worked very well.

CRTs are still a "definate maybe" but not guaranteed at this point. If I do make some they are likely to be 14/15" ???