DDIN Library

OPTIONS TO CONSIDER IN DIECUTTING

Details: Written by Robert Larson

Foil stamping, embossing/debossing and diecutting are all common cousins that are what I consider to be parts of the diecutting process. My rational for this statement is that they generally all utilize the same types of presses to accomplish their individual functions. Volumes could be written on the intricacies and details of each of the processes. At this time I would like to focus on options available to companies in the converting process that enhance their products with foil stamp or embossing and also need cut or trim component parts.

Within the diecutting process can be found a wide option of different types of cutting die tooling. There are many different types of flat, multi-contour or rotary cutting press solutions to cut or trim different soft to semi-rigid materials. Any industry observer can easily notice a wide array of different press and tooling solutions to accomplish a simple or complex diecutting job. The trick is to combine the correct cutting press, cutting surface and cutting die tooling to best cut or trim component parts of your products.

As a consultant to the diecutting process, I have had numerous opportunities to observe different combinations of tooling and press systems to cut or trim a material or product. These options range from what I consider logical well thought out solutions that bring together matched elements of cutting die tooling and presses to a mishmash of elements that may work together to some degree of efficiency or success. Let me explain.

Many companies that use cutting dies and die presses tend to rely on what is on hand or available within a plant for their cutting press systems. The available die cutting press may, in reality, not be the press system of choice for the best or most efficient solution. Often management will struggle to use that press simply because they have it. I have seen this scenario many times. When I ask why they are using the press the response generally comes in two forms. The first answer is because they have it. The other answer is that management told us to use this press because they don’t want to invest in another press. Both responses are in my mind are ill advised. In many cases, I have observed a cutting department manager struggling to cut pieces on an old punch press with inadequate in feeds and out feeds. The press does the job, but often only marginally and not very efficiently. Registration can be a problem and cutting speeds are often limited.

It is no wonder that they are not competitive in the marketplace. Often a sales manager will complain to me that they just can not produce parts at a price per cut piece to be competitive with their competition. The answer often is that the competition has invested in equipment and tooling that allows them to produce parts at a lower cost per cut piece. The plain truth of the matter is that the competition simply thought out the process better to produce parts at a lower cost per cut piece. Their return on investment is better, their diecutting process is more efficient and their profit is better.

Cutting Die Tooling

The next scenario I have seen too many times is to use the cheapest cutting die tooling available. Management often sends a strong signal to their purchasing agents to save money buy purchasing their tooling and equipment from the lowest source. After all, is the response, aren’t all steel rule dies the same. Isn’t the steel rule die the least expensive type of cutting die? The purchasing agent becomes management’s hero buy saving money. What he or she actually may be doing is causing frustrations and problems on the diecutting production lines and in reality creating additional costs in production.

You may notice that I tend to be a wee bit critical of many purchasing type persons. I think that before any person should be allowed to purchase any tooling or equipment that that individual should spend a year or more working in the production areas of a business. Let them understand and experience the production side of the business before they start purchasing materials, equipment or dies and “saving” money for the company.

In many cases diecutting managers do not have a good understanding of the various options in the different types of cutting die tooling that is available in the marketplace. They seldom know the capabilities, the advantages or disadvantages of using different types of cutting die tooling. They should learn how different types of cutting die tooling could possibly improve their diecutting efficiency and profitability. They most often use what they are used to using in the past. They live with limitations or problems of a particular type of die. In many cases if they go to their steel rule die supplier, he or she will not suggest alternative types of tooling. They often try to make the steel rule die work where it may not be the best tooling of choice.

There are resources available to provide diecutters with information on all areas of flat bed, multi-contour and rotary diecutting. In past years, the Diecutting Symposium Educational Conferences was presented in Asia, Europe and North America to provide diecutters with information on our industry. In our website www.dieco.com, we have the Dieco Library with numerous on all areas of the diecutting process plus embossing and foil stamping. The International Association of Diecutting and Diemaking (IADD) www.iadd.org as well as the Foil Specialty Effects Association www.fsea.com also provide resources on diecutting information. As a predecessor of the Diecutting Symposium program the IADD and FSEA now present the Odyssey program focused in diecutting and Diemaking, plus Embossing and Foil Stamping. Today, the Internet provides a wealth of information on the diecutting process not available even a few years ago.

Please, steel rule diemakers, I am not picking on you. In many cases the steel rule die can be the cost effective tooling of choice. I only wish that most steel rule diemakers knew of other options in tooling and had formed some sort of alliance with other diemakers to offer their customers a more wide range of options that could benefit the customer in their diecutting operations.

In this article I would like to explore various types cutting die-tooling options available in the marketplace. Tooling that could be utilized by companies involved in foil stamping and embossing/debossing. I have seen a situation in cutting many parts where a manufacturer knows only of steel rule dies as a diecutting solution. If the trusted steel rule die would not do the job, they tend to go directly to hard tooling such as male/female dies. They often overlook or are unaware of a whole range of cutting die tooling options that I will describe below. By going to hard tooling they elect the most expensive type of tooling. There are other types of tooling that fall between the steel rule die and hard tooling that can provide the diecutting with economical solutions to their diecutting applications.

Steel Rule Dies

The steel rule die is most common type of cutting die in use in the graphic arts trades is the steel rule die. In most applications, the steel rule die is an excellent choice. Steel rule dies can be made to be used on either flat bed or rotary die presses. They often accomplish the cutting or trimming job in an economical manner. Laser produced steel rule dies today provide accuracy to +/- 0.005”.

A steel rule die is basically pieces of thin sharpened rule placed into a dieboard. The steel rule blade is measured in thickness by points for the old days of the printer’s point. One point is 0.014” thick, therefore a 2PT rule is 0.028” thick or 3PT rule is .042” thick. The normal height of a steel rule die is .937” high or what is called type high. This again goes back to the olden days of printing where the type that was set to produce a book or some other printed matter was type high (.937”). It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that thin 2PT or 3PT blades are to flimsy to stand up by themselves, they would topple over. Therefore they are supported in a dieboard base usually 5/8” high. The dieboard base is normally made out of wood, either birch, maple, beech or some combination of wood species. Composition materials, aluminum, ABS plastic or PlexiglasÔ are sometimes used as a dieboard base.

A wide variety of steel rule blades are used in steel rule dies. Different blade configurations, hardness and or special features for different applications are available. I could write an article on this topic by itself. Any good steel rule diemaker knows the many choices and how to apply them to a special situation. A diemaker can produce an excellent steel rule die, and then fail to apply the correct ejection materials to the die and severely limit the efficiency of the die in the cutting press. I have been into many shops where they were having problems diecutting and the cause of the problem was the use of ejection materials, not the die itself.

I have seen a number of cutting applications where a diecutter tries to push the envelope on the functionality of the use of a steel rule die. The solution, in fact, often is using some other type of cutting die tooling. Yes, another type of tooling may cost more, but that type of die may just improve the functionality of the diecutting operation. Let me delve further into this discussion.

Two basic problems with steel rule dies are:

1.Steel rule dies can not be resharpened, especially in situation where they are being used in a press with a hardened steel cutting plate. Where as the cost of the die may have been reasonable in the beginning, when you consider the cost of reruling the die whenever the blades get dull, that costs adds to the cost of the tooling.
2.All steel rule dies have butted joints. This is perfectly satisfactory in applications that do not involve fibers or threads as in the cases of all fabrics. The problem with cutting fabrics is that threads tend to lodge into the butted areas and separate the butted blades. Some diemakers attempt to braze or weld joints.

Other Options

Many diecutters know little of clicker dies, EDM close tolerance dies, flat or rotary chemically etched dies, hard anvil rotary dies or combination dies (steel rule with male/female elements). That is one of the prime reasons that in 1988, I developed the Diecutting Symposium program. My goal was to expose people in our industry to the many diverse segments of tooling and equipment available to solve problems in cutting a wide range of soft to semi-rigid materials.

Let me now provide a brief explanation of each type of cutting die that I have listed above.

Clicker Dies

Clicker dies got their name from the clicking sound in old mechanical swing armed pressed used originally in the shoe industry in the early 1900’s. The clicker dies are generally made of .125” to .250” thick die steel. Clicker dies are made in heights up to 1.250”. Over 1.250” the dies are commonly referred to as high dies. Clicker die blades can be formed in different types of constructions to include regular wall, straight inside or outside wall or clearance walls. These different wall constructions provide opportunities to cut a wide variety of materials such as rigid plastics, plywood and other materials.

Clicker dies can be produced using either annealed soft blades that are then heat treated to a hardness of 48 to 50 Rockwell or with edge hardened pre-sharpened blades. Clicker die blades are durable enough so that they do not need a reinforcement media such as steel rule dies. Often clicker dies will be braced to reinforce the stability of the die.

A major advantage of using a clicker type die is that it can be resharpened many times. Since clicker die blades most often have harder edges than most steel rule dies, they tend to retain their sharpness longer than steel rule dies. The process of resharpening a clicker dies is relatively simple once a person is train to properly relevel and resharpen the dies blade. Unfortunately, in many cases, untrained individuals attempt to resharpen dies an often do more damage than good.

Clicker dies are generally made to a commercial tolerance of +/- .015” (1/64”). A variety of the bent clicker die is the solid milled or EDM machined clicker die made from a solid block of tool steel. This type of a die can hold a tolerance of +/- 0.001”. The EDM type die can also be made with many wall configurations to accommodate the cutting of more rigid materials. Today most laboratory testing dies for ASTM tensile and tear testing rubber or other material applications are produced by EDM techniques.

The cost of clicker type dies vs. steel rule dies are generally is recognized to be initially more expensive. Naturally as the tolerance requirements of a diecut part increase, so does the cost of the die. That is only natural in the grand scheme of life. Many purchasing people may see the initial cost of a clicker die as greater. They do not realize that the cost of re-rulings of a steel rule die can significantly add to the cost of the original tooling. Today if purchasing people are fully cognizant of clicker type dies, they can realize that the clicker die can be cost effective vs. the steel rule die.

Probably more important is the fact that utilizing the stronger cutting blades and wall construction options of clicker die tooling that the clicker type tooling could in some cases be the tooling of choice over the thinner walled steel rule die. The important thing to realize in this matter is that if individuals that purchase cutting die tooling fully recognize the various tooling options in the marketplace, then they could purchase more suitable tooling for their production requirements.

Chemically Etched Dies

Chemically etched and machined chemically etched dies are definitely becoming more in use today. A chemically etched die is produced by etching away material from areas other than the blade areas. Most companies producing their chemically etched dies today machine finish the cutting blades. There are different processes in use to improve the hardness of the blades to increase the length of diecutting. Some of the processes are laser hardening and titanium nitride coatings. A new process IBEST is an ion particle beam treatment called that is claimed to increase the life of the cutting edge from 50% to 200%.

One major drawback of this type of dies is the height of the die blade. In many cases the height of the blade could be from 0.019” up to 0.025”. This is ideal for kiss cutting labels where it would not be suitable for cutting thicker materials. This is changing, as the blade heights become higher. Today there is a growing trend to use flexible etched ‘dies to die cut paperboard folding cartons. In this application, the material is 0.035” with a 0.025” high blade. I have also seen intricate shapes cut from plastic materials previously cut with steel rule or clicker dies.

The flexible etched die has been primarily used in rotary diecutting where the flexible die is magnetically attached to a magnetic cylinder. Flat bed diecutting can also be accommodated utilizing a flat magnetic base. /the costs of flexible magnetic dies are far more economical than their solid hard anvil rotary die cousins.

Combination (Combo) Dies

The combo die is a combination of using steel rule blades and male/female die tooling. Generally, the less critical outside shapes of a die are steel rule blades while cutouts or internal features of a closer tolerance would be male/female tooling. This type of tooling is an ideal cost effective tooling vs. more expensive total male female tooling. Combo dies are generally mounted into a die set, which in turn is mounted into a cutting press. This type of tooling is a good solution when you have many punches or cutouts that have to be effectively stripped from a die cut piece.

Hard Anvil Rotary Dies

Hard anvil rotary dies are by their very nature of production techniques expensive vs. the magnetically mounted rotary flexible etched die. The hard anvil die is today made with EDM or CNC programmed methods. This type of die is very cost effective in long run applications. Today with shorter production runs dictated by just in time procedures, individuals who purchase cutting die tooling should be cognizant of this type of tooling. In general, I believe that hard anvil rotary tooling is not applicable to many applications involving embossing or foil stamping. I am certain that our good friends that produce hard tooling would probably come to the challenge to produce rotary tooling to accomplish embossing and foil stamping applications. Since rotary tooling is not my specialty, I will defer to other individuals in the industry who can better address this area.

Thermal Dies

The thermal type die is produced from a magnesium base. It is heated and rather than purely cutting, it melts its way through vinyl materials. This type of a die is commonly used in making decals and signage. It is a special application type of cutting die.

My main point in writing this article has been to open the eyes of people in the embossing and foil stamping industries that are performing diecutting in their converting process to better understand their options in tooling available to them in the marketplace. Possibly in the future they will think twice before just ordering they type of die that has always been ordered. Maybe with their new awareness of blade options and die constructions, they will be able to suggest types of tooling that can better accommodate their production requirements.

The challenge to all of what I have discussed is to find that right combination of tooling along with the optimum diecutting press and cutting surface to best cut or trim your products. In most types of cutting die tooling you can also integrate embossing and debossing elements so that embossing/debossing and diecutting can be accomplished in one operation.