ironworker punch table (mild steel)

I like the notes on the bottom. At school we have lost more ironworker punches and dies to people punching partial holes than anything else. Second worse is trying to punch holes smaller than the thickness of the material. Third is puting the die in upside down.

Shape punches and dies (rectangle, obround, etc..) put in at different angles can be a real killer on them to.

Glenn G.

Glenn, are you talking about crashing the tooling? Not much fun.

Grant, you can also use that table for different materials. All you have to do is know the tensile strength and come up with a modifier to multiply with. Say you want to punch type 304 SS. In the annealed condition the tensile is about 90,000. That's about 50% more than MS. Multiply your tonnage by 1.5 and that has you close. I never take a machine up to it's rated tonnage. I usually go with a higher tonnage machine. Of course shear angle on the punch or die can reduce tonnage required. It is dangerous though to use shear in an attempt to get within the rated tonnage of the machine, especially an older used machine. You just don't know how it was used in the past. Always better to play it safe as materials can vary.

Les