Diecuts Anyone?

[heliski989]

There is no need. Unlike a reciprocating saw blade, there is no kerf.

[MontuckyMadman]

hmm so you have tested this? I have access to one of these and have seen that the blade kinda pushes the plastic as it cuts. I have yet to use it for diecutting just seeing it cut base and the cut left behind it looks like I would need to offset.
What is the thickness of your blade at cut depth?

[knightsofnii]

when this blade is used, at least for cutting tip fill material, same stuff just thicker, it leaves a kind of channel, like was said it kinda pushes the material out of the way, and you have to go and scrape this little ridge off later with a razor blade or it ends up as a high spot.

It could be that the blade wasnt sharp enough? drag-knives are pretty neat though. But picture that thing working like a snow-plow as it goes along.

[MontuckyMadman]

so sounds like a kerf to me and an offset would be necessary? I'm just trying to figure out how they really do it in the industry.
I just don't have time to test it.

[heliski989]

In the Industry they use Dies... for mass production.
I have the machine, and ill tell you right now, there is no kerf! there is no material removed. What is so hard about this? If you dont believe me there is a gerber cutter on ebay for 25k right now, buy it and try it out for your self.

[MontuckyMadman]

no need to get testy.

I already have a machine and as I said, I see it pushes the material in such a way, that I witnessed, I may need to offset.

And I have seen the exact same machine we have, used in mass production. I'm sure some use dies, some use an Eastman 9000 vacuum table.

The fit needs to be tight I was just wondering what tolerances were created with this technique. Obviously I will have to try it for myself and waste material if incorrect.

[shopvac]

hey montucky, we just sent you up some base material. I hope you get that soon. I would be willing to provide a few more meters for testing if it doesn't work out. Let me know.

Heliski -- could you post some photos of your bases that you have cut out with this machine? I am very curious to see how they work/look. I am just up the road from Denver and would like to someday do something like this on our homebuilts. Looks very cool. I would also be interested in cutting some fg out with this machine as that is my least favorite part of skibuilding.

[knightsofnii]

i was just saying that when cutting tip fill, the drag knife I'm familiar with left a channel. This was 2mm thick stuff.

Now, if you cut into 1.3mm base, and you have a brandy new drag knife, maybe you get better results, especially if you set it up so the drag knife cuts only exactly the thickness of the material.

I'm sure the channel would be a result of the depth of cut, and the shape of the knife blade.

If done properly I could see the cut width being negligible enough so that no offset is required.

I'm stoked to hear more about your results, as I too would be interested in possibly working something out with you in the future.

"die cut" bases can be done several ways, whether doing like above, or doing it with a super small diameter drill like bit, or maybe even a hot wire?, or doing the die/press/stamp method. Or you could just cnc them and hope your offsets on inner/outer parts match. I would err on the side of having a tiny gap, and hope that with a heated press the heat will actually cause inner material to expand and fill the gaps.

on some Lib Tech boards I've seen, you can actually see die cuts where there are razor marks in corners, where someone had to go in and do some hand work to clean each piece up, pretty interesting.

[powderho]

I tried a little test piece on the Lectra table at work and I couldn't believe how clean the cut was! No mess, no kerf, nothing. So much cleaner than any router I've used. I love the thought of my base material going from its packaging, to the clean room where the machine is located, and then to my filthy garage right before it gets laid up. The machine has automatic-roll feed which is pretty cool, but sucks for my application. I think I need to tape down the material in addition to the vacuum table. My test piece wouldn't stay put with just the vacuum.

[knightsofnii]

you need to flatten out your base material...

cut the pieces to length and let them sit somewhere flat for a while...maybe even a couple weeks so they can relax and unroll themselves.

You also need to block off all the vacuum parts of the table you're not using.

Try a huge piece of mdf maybe over the whole thing, cut out only where you need the vacuum working, it should increase the vacuum force of just that section. A couple staples help too.

And one last thing i forgot to mention about the channels. Its your machine, and everyone will have different results, so if yours are on and super, then that's awesome and there is nothing we can say except i hope you have continued results

[MontuckyMadman]

Hey doug I wonder if the cuts you saw on libs stuff was a result of the use of overcut amount on one of these machines which is used quite frequently for different applications.
Maybe not.

[heliski989]

Just got off the phone with the folks over at eastman cutters. They supply machines for K2, Mervin and many of the other snowboard mfg.

There machines run around 85K. But they are supposed to be the best.

on the hold vacuum hold down issue: We had that problem too. all i did was increase the hole size in the table... drilled them @ 1/16 instead of 1/32 and it worked just fine. My machine has a 5HP vacuum pump as well and is quite powerful. Using a plastic dropcloth from Home Depot works well too!

[MontuckyMadman]

That's what we have also, in fact 2. The only thing different is our spindle thickness for our drag blade. We see more deflection than the spindle used in industry but we cut fabric most of the time and some plastic.

So you stand true and correct no need to offset? You are right I bow to your knowledge?
Can't wait to try it out as long as I don't waste fancy plastic.