DDIN Library

DIECUTTING . . . THE INVISIBLE PROCESS YESTERDAY, TODAY & TOMORROW

Details: Written by Robert Larson

Diecutting as we know it today spans a history in the 20^th century of less than 150 years going back to the mid 1800’s.

Today, diecutting is performed all over the world, in every country, in many industries and in numerable companies producing products that touch every aspect of our lives. How will the diecutting process evolve beyond the year 2000? That is a good question. It most likely will become more automated. New methods will be devised to cut and trim soft to semi-rigid materials. To look to the future, I though it would be interesting to look to the past first and then to present day.

Ask almost anyone unfamiliar with the diecutting process "What is diecutting?" and they will probably look at you with a puzzled face and shrug their shoulders. In most cases they have little idea or interest of what diecutting is all about. Go to a library and ask for books on diecutting. Most likely you will not find a single book on the subject. I like to think of diecutting as an invisible process. It exists inside many converting manufacturing operations. It is indeed a vital part of many converting and manufacturing processes. Whether people know it or not, diecutting affects almost everyone in their day-to-day lives.

To the common person, the most visible reference to diecutting probably is an obscure listing in the Yellow Pages of your phone book or in most Business-to-Business phone books entitled "Diecutting." People who consider themselves experts in one of the many segments of the diecutting process, are often unfamiliar with how someone in another area of diecutting accomplishes their diecutting on different materials or products. The total diecutting process is immense but is also very segmented. A company diecutting individual component parts of leather wallets on a swing arm clicker press probably has no idea of how a folding carton manufacturer diecuts and creases folding cartons on high volume automatic platen presses or how an electronics company cuts out flexible printed circuit boards.

Some history

Diecutting in its most basic form can best be equated to your mother baking cookies. At Christmas time she would roll out cookie dough on a kitchen counter and cut out shapes of Christmas trees, snowmen or other figures using a tin or plastic cookie cutter. She could cut out as many Christmas tree shapes as she wanted to make identical shaped cookies. She had, in effect, diecut her cookie dough into cookie dough shapes. This same concept has been used for many decades to cut duplicate items out of many soft to semi hard materials like, leather, paper, fabrics, plastics and a whole array of other materials.

Diecutting, as a process in manufacturing, developed as a result of the Industrial Revolution. Manufacturers needed to economically produce standardized component parts of their products. Take the manufacturing of shoes, for example. Leather shoes are manufactured from a number of component parts to include vamps, quarters, outer soles, inner soles etc. Before the Industrial Revolution, a shoemaker would make a tracing of a customer's foot and hand cut or hand craft a pair of shoes or boots to fit the customers feet. No two pairs of shoes were exactly the same. The fit of the shoes depended upon the skill of the craftsman making the footwear. Eventually, made to order shoes were made available to customers. A shoe designer or shoe pattern maker would create a set of patterns in different size ranges for each style or model of shoes. In the early to mid 1800’s, craftsmen started to cut out the parts using a pattern with a hand held knife.

The next evolution was to create cutting dies to cut out the different parts of a shoe. In the mid 1800's, several new developments took place. Shoe manufacturers started to use a cutting die called a mallet handle die. This hand held die, usually in the shape of a sole of a shoe, was used to cut the sole design out of heavy leather. Imagine a person holding the handle and a die with one hand. With his other hand holding a heavy rawhide mallet, he would strike the end of the handle while the die was pressed down on the top of a hide of leather. The leather would be placed on top of an end grained maple wood block and the die would cut through the leather slightly penetrating the surface of the wood block. With a swift whomp or strike of the mallet, the sharp edge of the die would cut through the leather and produce a perfectly diecut part of a shoe. Mallet handle dies were the beginning of the diecutting process, at least in the footwear industry.

“Dieing” machines, as they were called, or basic belt driven die presses were used to cut out shoe parts in the late 1800's. A later development was that of the swing arm clicker press around the turn of the century. It was then possible to make heat-treated 9/16" and 3/4" single and double edge clicker dies to cut out the various right and left upper component parts of shoes. The mechanical “Dinker” press was later used to cut out heavy sole leather for shoes using 3-1/2” high “Walker” dies.

In an entirely different part of the converting process, another development happened. Again, in the mid 1800's, the printing press was used to print and to crease paper to make a fold in the paper stock. An almost identical event happened both in England and also in the United States. There are many stories to tell of whom first stumbled onto the idea of diecutting paper, but here is the way it happened. A printer in New York City was setting up his printing press to crease some paper stock. He applied too much pressure to the creasing rule in the press and the creasing rule cut into the paper. The press operator had an idea. He took the crease blade and ground a sharp edge onto the crease rule. He then put the rule back into the press and the rule cut through the paper. The era of diecutting paper and paperboard was upon us. In England another printer experienced the same situation and a company by the name of Notting started to produce steel rule cutting blades.

From the early developments in the shoe and printing industries, companies producing soft goods discovered that they could die cut thousand upon thousands of identical parts that could be assembled into products. The diecutting operation was always a part of the total manufacturing operation, one of many different operations in the whole process. It was truly an invisible operation that was taken for granted and did not receive much notoriety. Looking at a product, it was difficult for the consumer to visualize that diecutting was an integral part of the manufacturing process.

The many parts of diecutting today

Today it is impossible to spend an hour of a day and not wear, use or see something that has not been diecut. It can be said that diecutting influences every aspect of our daily lives. Its invisible influence affects everyone. For example, many items of clothing that you wear are diecut. All of the component parts of your shoes or boots are diecut. Many parts of women’s intimate apparel, bras and girdles are diecut. Your pockets in your jeans or trousers, shirts and sport coats or suit coats are diecut. Shirt collars and under linings are diecut. Your wallet, key case or eyeglass case are diecut. In most cases the plastic eyeglass frames and temples are die cut. All your credit cards are diecut. The coat fronts of suits and coats are trimmed with cutting dies. Labels on our favorite bottle of wine or champagne are diecut. Sanitary napkins, fish sticks, tobacco leaves for cigars, dog bones or carpet tiles are diecut.

When you ride in your automobile, many people do not realize that many component parts are diecut to include the upholstery, floor coverings, gaskets in the engine, sound dampening firewalls between the engine and the passenger compartment and even the dashboard is cut and trimmed using multi-contour cutting and trim dies. Many of the parts are visible, but the process to cut or trim the parts is, in most instances, invisible to the consumer.

In the area of packaging of products, we see many applications for diecutting. Every day you are using some type of paperboard or corrugated packaging. They are all diecut. Many packages are thermoformed or blister packed. Again the parts are cut or trimmed using cutting dies.

The application of diecutting techniques are as diverse as is imaginable. Many flexible printed circuit boards in electronic devices are diecut. Envelopes and labels are diecut. Life jackets, pizzas, medical products, playing cards, numbers and letters for highway signs and athletic uniforms are diecut. Pressure sensitive vinyl signs can be seen displaying many products on trucks and trailers. The world of diecutting is all around us. Invisible as diecutting may be, the results of the process are very visible in everyday life.

THE Process

How does this process work? There is a wide range of types of cutting dies and diecutting press systems to cut and trim different materials and products. Which type of cutting die or cutting press depends on several basic considerations of the material to be diecut:

1. The thickness of the material

2. The rigidity or firmness of the material

3. The compression or spring back of the material

4. Surface coatings or layered compositions of the material

5. Single ply or multiple ply diecutting

6. Stretch or distortion of the material while diecutting

7. Affects of temperature and humidity.

The best solution for cutting and trimming different materials or products depends upon the understanding of the basic element. Having a sharp knife blade penetrate through a particular layer or layers of material to produce a good clean cut while maintaining the integrity of the material

The important elements in the diecutting process are the:

MATERIAL to be diecut
CUTTING DIE TOOLING used to cut the material
CUTTING SURFACE that you either cut against ("Onto" diecutting) such as a hardened sheet plate or a softer cutting surface like polypropylene that you slightly cut into ("Into diecutting)
CUTTING PRESS

All of the above elements must be understood and considered to obtain good diecutting.

Using the correct type of cutting die tooling is an essential element in the success of the diecutting process. For years diemakers worked at their craft of producing different types of cutting dies. Little if anything was ever written down by diemakers because they were often too busy building their dies. Many diemakers considered their skills a personal measure of their worth and did not want to share their techniques or tricks of the trade. Again, try and find a book on the manufacturing of cutting dies. You can only find books on manufacturing other types of dies, such as male female type dies for blanking out metal products.

Art vs. Engineering

I do not intend to go into the nuts and bolts of how to cut and trim all types of materials. To do that would take many volumes of subjects and articles. This is not the time or place to explore the many types of flat, multi-contour or rotary cutting die tooling that are vital parts of the diecutting process. Let it be said at this time that there are different types of cutting die tooling best suited to cut different types of materials. There are certain techniques or tricks of the trade, so to say that are more appropriate to use for cutting one type of material over another. The art of diemaking and diecutting is still a trial and error process. You will note that I said the art vs. an engineering process. Diemaking and diecutting still incorporates many craftsmen techniques. But, that is changing.

Today into tomorrow

The art of diemaking is rapidly becoming the engineered process of diemaking. The computer with automated systems of producing cutting die tooling has changed the landscape of how cutting dies are produced today. This is as true for flat and rotary steel rule dies as it is for solid anvil or the wrap around magnetic rotary dies. The only exception to this could be the production of clicker type dies that are produced with annealed or pre-ground pre-hardened edges. Unfortunately in this part of the industry, most diemakers have not incorporated new ideas or techniques of diemaking and still produce dies that are heavily labor intensive as they have for many decades. It is time for that segment of the industry to wake up to new manufacturing techniques.

Both diecutting and diemaking have become an engineering process. To be truly successful as a diecutter or a diemaker today, a company has to understand that the process has to be an engineered process. Yes, we still need individuals who understand the whole process and the basic old techniques. They have to embrace new manufacturing technologies in automation along with labor saving techniques. The individual worker has to become more productive utilizing manufacturing or converting systems.

Take a look at the shoe industry for example. A recent news report in Massachusetts stated the shoe industry is again growing in the state. Manufacturing of shoes that were once lost to lower labor cost countries, is returning to Massachusetts. Why you may ask. The answer is that shoe manufacturers have re-engineered their production processes to make the worker more productive, lowering manufacturing costs. Yes, shoe production is returning. The down side is fewer people are used in the process. The up side is those people are more productive and better paid.

The future

This scenario, I believe, can and will happen in other industries as well. It is a result of incorporating new ideas and technologies into producing products. This has a direct relationship on the future of cutting out component parts of products from soft to semi-hard materials. Traditional diecutting may, in certain areas, always stay the same. In other areas you will see an increase in digital diecutting, laser and waterjet cutting. People will go to methods that allow them to economically cut or trim component parts. More automated diecutting equipment will probably be introduced. Certainly new types of cutting die tooling will most certainly be introduced. Some types are on the drawing board right now.

What does the future hold for the many companies involved in the diecutting process? Remember . . . the only constant thing in life is change. Those individuals who do not dream and create new ways of doing things will eventually become unprofitable and cease to exist in the marketplace. Those companies that embrace new ideas and technologies will be the winners in the new millennium. I can honestly say that in the coming decades we, in the diecutting process as we know it today, will see new technologies develop that will usher in many new ways of cutting and trimming component parts for products. We will see many new materials develop that will require creative cutting solutions to convert the materials of tomorrow. In the not too distant past, we have experienced challenges like KevlarÔ, ballistic nylons or composite materials that have demanded new ideas for cutting those materials.

In the future, we will be challenged with new solutions to cut and trim even more exotic materials. We will be faced with profitability issues that will force us to further evaluate the way we do things to maintain reasonable profit margins. We will be pushed, nudged and tugged into new diecutting and diemaking challenges. There are companies in our industry that will create solutions to meet the challenges of the next millennium. My question to you is. “Will you or your company be one of the innovators of the future of diecutting?” “Will your company discover how to do business in a changing diecutting marketplace and maintain a good profit margin in the future?”