Metal Fabricating machines and tooling
Looking to produce a 35 degree metal stair way? The #1500 Angle Notcher miters your pipe or tube at a specified angle in two-press cycles. This unit will produce the 35 degree cope on one cycle and the 55 degree cope with the second cycle. Knife sets are made of tool steel A2 material and produce great production. The coper notcher pipe knife sets are replaceable. Common applications include hand rails, ATV frames and many more. Quality USA precision made tooling.
Since starting off selling Ironworker tooling kits we have recently just sold our 1,000 tool kit. Many of us have been in the metal fabricating industry for many years and have enjoyed working with different punching applications. Most of our long term customers bought their first machine from us and have maintain a strong relationship through the years. That first machine is typically an Ironworker to help add capabilities to their growing metal working shop.
Most Ironworkers will have metal punching, flat bar shearing, angle iron shearing, coping, notching with many options to add to the machine. It is a great machine to start with and then add the band saw, metal shear, press brake, etc as the shop grows.
We started selling Ironworker tooling kits when we started up with our company website and added products to our store. We have been selling the kits to our regional customers for many years as an easy way to tool-up a machine. We have expanded the Ironworker tooling kits for almost every Ironworker manufacturer in the world.
The most popular style ironworker tool we sell is the figure # 16 punch and figure # 55 dies. These tools fit Edwards, CST, Piranha, Pittsburgh and Hawthorn machines. The second most popular would be the Scotchman style tool that fits the smaller Scotchman and Uni-Hydro Ironworkers.
We also stock accessories which include Urethane Strippers, Oversized Attachments, Die Reducers, Punch Stems and Die Blocks.
In a perfect world, there would be no galling, no abrasive forces that wear out tooling, no radius distortion, and the list goes on and on. But the reality is that in sheet metal fabrication, every application has unique requirements and depending on the material, tool steel, bend angle and many other factors, these requirements can cause undesirable effects. These undesirable effects can then result in excessive downtime, poor quality parts, a decrease in production – all of which hurt your bottom line. Fortunately, there are ways to help avoid these problems.
Many manufacturers offer a variety of different surface treatments that help minimize the signs of wear, galling, and distortion.
These superior surface treatments along with the exclusive use of high quality Chrome-Moly tool steel and advanced manufacturing methods, produce the highest quality tooling available.
Here are some examples of industry coatings:
Nitrex®
Best for: reducing galling and/or premature wear
Wilson Tool’s proprietary Nitrex® treatment is a heat-treat process that increases wear resistance and lubricity, resulting in minimized galling and corrosion. This heat-treat process hardens the entire surface of the tool to 68-70 HRC including the tips and shoulders where most of the abrasion occurs during bending. Nitrex-treated tools deliver improved productivity, lower overall tooling costs, and superior finished products.
Laser Hardening
Best for: Reducing radius distortion, bending heavy material
When bending heavy material, laser hardening is the best solution. This method involves hardening the concentrated points of the tool, primarily the punch tips and shoulder radii on the dies. This process creates a hardness of 55-60 HRC with a depth of approximately .060”. Most tool punches and all dies with v-openings of 1.5” or greater are laser hardened. This process is used by Wila Tools and Wilson Tools.
Induction Hardening:
Best for: Conventional style tooling
This process involves hardening the tool with a heated coil and then quenching it with water. This creates a hardness of HRC 55-60 and the depth of hardness is approximately .120”.
Flame hardening
Flame hardening is often used to harden only a portion of an object, by quickly heating it with a very hot flame in a localized area, and then quenching the steel. This turns the heated portion into very hard martensite, but leaves the rest unchanged. Usually, an oxy-gas torch is used to provide such high temperatures. Flame hardening is a very common surface hardening technique, which is often used to provide a very wear-resistant surface. A common use is for hardening the surface of gears, making the teeth more resistant to erosion. The gear will usually be quenched and tempered to a specific hardness first, making a majority of the gear tough, and then the teeth are quickly heated and immediately quenched, hardening only the surface. Afterward, it may or may not be tempered again to achieve the final differential hardness.
This process is often used for knife making, by heating only the edge of a previously quenched and tempered blade. When edge turns the proper color temperature, it is quenched, hardening only the edge, but leaving most of the rest of the blade at the lower hardness. The knife is then tempered again to produce the final differential hardness.
Need to produce a large oblong hole greater than the capacity of your punch or Ironworker? A safe method to produce the hole is to use a ripping and heel punch. Punch a round hole the width of the oblong and inset the heel of the punch into the material and work through the material.
