Stamping Question

Hey Spencer,
You make some cool knives bro. Love your unique style! :thumbup: Just read about you in Tactical Knives. Nice stuff! Wish I'd of known about the stamp thing earlier. If I ever need a new one or a different size I'll check them out.

SR Matt,
I'm with Kevin. As long as you use heavy enough material and strong enough fasteners ( grade 5 or better yet grade 8) I think you'll be good to go. My jack is only a six ton, and I'm also using two lengths of material (heavy wall 1 1/2" square tube steel) and I can see mine flex as well. Too bad you weren't in Maine. I'd weld that thing up for you in a few minutes! Sure would save alot of time.
Scott
 
scottang1 said:
Thought I'd post a pic of the stamp press I just finished up last night.

Kevin, thank you for the inspiration!

I made it wide enough to accept knives from the front and the side, depending on where I want my mark to go. It works like a charm with my new Evers Stamp. It pops in and out in just a few seconds. I milled a slot in the lower cross member to accept the stamp, and installed a clip to keep it from falling out. Two 1/4-20 bolts hold the stamp square and plum while stamping. The jack is a 6 ton, and does the trick with little effort.

I made about 15 successful stamps with it on a bar of O-1. All clear and crisp. I got the material to make it for free (out of the scap bin at work), and only paid for the jack. I think it cost around $20.00 at one of those discount tool stores. I ground the top (pad) of the jack smooth and flat so it wouldn't mar the bottom of the knife while stamping.
Thanks for looking.
Scott[/QUOTe

Damn that's nice. Feel like making one to sell to me???
Click to expand...
 
More than the KMG? That thing is so nice I may have to take a road trip!
 
Hey guys, this is a really good idea, thanks for showing it to us. Kevin, when do you prefer to stamp, when it's still red, after anneal??
 
Would you possibly be able make the peice that holds the stamp?
 
Kevin a dumb question perhaps but do you put pressure on the knife from below, the bottle jack, then strike the stamp from the top?
If so does the stamp have a step on it to prevent it from just moving out of the top of the frame??
 
I received some questions via email about how exactly this press works. Here goes:
The stamp is held inside the first (bottom) cross member in a milled pocket. The top of the stamp makes contact with the inside top wall of the first cross member, thus offering support for the stamp so it can't move up anymore. This first cross member is reinforced by the second, directly above it. Evers stamps come with a hole in them. I use a cotter pin, fitted through guide tabs welded to the frame of the press, and through the stamp, to keep it from dropping out of the pocket.

The blade is placed (and held by hand) flat on the pad of the jack, then raised into the stamp. The stamp is held plum and square to the jack's pad with the two 1/4-20 bolts (one on either side of the press). Very little effort is required after the stamp makes contact with the blade. Just a pump and a half or so of the jack handle and the job is done. The whole process takes maybe 15 seconds to perform from start to completion.

To switch stamps, you just loosen the alignment bolts a little, pull the cotter pin, and the stamp drops right out. Pop the new one in, level and square it to the jack pad, then snug up the alignment bolts again.

Here's a close-up of that area. Hope this helps.
Scott
 
rhrocker said:
Hey guys, this is a really good idea, thanks for showing it to us. Kevin, when do you prefer to stamp, when it's still red, after anneal??
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IN the past that was always an issue for me, one needed the steel soft enough to take the stamp (the reason for my 20 tons is that my "KC" is bouble outlined and requires a lot of force to go into the steel). Doing it hot always resulted in misery for me. Getting it when it was annealed, before HT, was good but if any clean up had to be done after the HT the stamp would get washed out. When I finally got my system down so that I could completely finish before the HT I had it licked. I still ahd all the problems with double and crooked stamping. Some times I would get a little too shallow and have to hit it again, the fine double lines on my "KC" was horrible to try to line up again, I would stand there for 20 minutes minutely wiggling the stamp around to determine if I was back in the original grooves before striking, and almost every time I was wrong:(. I Had toyed with the thought of pressing them in for some time, thinking it would also be much better for wear on the stamps, but never got the ambition to make the damned press. For years I had been using an old treadle hammer to do the stamping, but since that is all I still used it for it was just taking up valuable floor space, so I decided the best way to motivate myslef was to get rid of it, and send it away to a friends shop in WI. I suffered for a little while but it worked, I finally got my lazy butt around and made that press in one afternoon for around $50. When shopping for a jack I saw an arbor press and considered that route, but I was still messing with the hammer and there would ahve been much more alteration and expsense.

I am very happy I just bought the jack. For something like my "MS" too much of that 20 tons will actually set it too deep. For my initials I designed the thing so the stamp passes throught fromt he bottom and can still be struck from the top, but there are no problems with this as with over 15 tons on it there can be no double striking- it ain't going anywhere! Jsu take your time and align thing perfectly and then go ahead and squeeze it in. Also this unit is very small and sets on one little corner of the bench without takin up any space that a floor press would.
 
scottang1 said:
Thought I'd post a pic of the stamp press I just finished up last night.
Click to expand...

I feel like a total bum, I don't ever bother paint the stuff I weld up. Did you paint it that color so you wouldn't loose it in your shop? I know how that happens. I am always misplacing tools. Just yesterday I spent an hour looking for my carbide scribe.


I got the material to make it for free (out of the scap bin at work)
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You forgot to add the "WINK WINK" as in "I got the material to make it for free (out of the scap bin at work) WINK, WINK!

If my boss caught someone scraping out a sq. ft. of 1/2" thick stock he would make the offender eat it.
 
Ilovetoolsteel said:
I feel like a total bum, I don't ever bother paint the stuff I weld up. Did you paint it that color so you wouldn't loose it in your shop? I know how that happens. I am always misplacing tools. Just yesterday I spent an hour looking for my carbide scribe.




You forgot to add the "WINK WINK" as in "I got the material to make it for free (out of the scap bin at work) WINK, WINK!

If my boss caught someone scraping out a sq. ft. of 1/2" thick stock he would make the offender eat it.
Click to expand...

Good for him! Me too!

Its pathetic to see the things that get thrown out around there (power plant). It makes me crazy. I was brought up to not throw anything away that could be useful. As an example, I know I've seen a mile of high pressure stainless steel tubing go out of there in the dumpsters (makes great handle pins by the way!). That's just the tip of the iceberg too. I have buckets full of nuts and bolts at home that were swept up with the rest of the debris after a job. I could go on and on, but what the hell, their trash, my treasure.

The paint was rescued from from the trash pile as well. After I peeled off the top skin (thanks to someone being too lazy to put the cover back on correctly) there was a half a gallon of good industrial safety yellow paint underneath, just waiting to be used.:)

Reminds me of going to a GE plant back in the 80's. I was working as a machinist in a small shop at the time. The owner worked some kind of deal where he bought 4'X4' bins full of tooling, micrometers, calipers, etc. GE was just scrapping this stuff. A particular government contract had ended, and they were cleaning house prior to tooling up for the next one. Some of it had never even been used. I'm pretty sure he said he paid $.04 a pound for it, the going rate then for scrap metal. WTF is wrong with American businesses sometimes?

My plant manager really is cool with it though. If its in one of the dumpsters, or the scrap pile, its fair game. I've got 4 brand new sheets of steel roofing material left over from building a new MCC hooch that I have to pick up with my trailer later this week. They were all set to cut it up and throw it in the scrap metal pile. Luckilly, I was in the right place at the right time and rescued it! Its got new dog kennel roof written all over it.
Scott
 
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