Fabricating For Dummies

Chapter 6

Stamping About

IN THIS CHAPTER

Describing stampers

Filling the gap and staying straight

Defining operations

Motivating mechanically

Powering up with servos

Thinking progressively

The mark of all good art is not that the thing done is done exactly or finely, for machinery may do as much, but that it is worked out with the head and the workman’s heart.

— OSCAR WILDE

Stamping presses are the workhorses of the fabricating industry. Depending on the press (two distinct types exist), they’re able to shape sheets of metal larger than a picnic table (sometimes much larger) or spit out complex metal widgets faster than you can say “no more overtime,” and do so with great accuracy. Together with press brakes and turret punch presses they form a machine-tool triad, without which effective sheet metal processing would be impossible.

In fact, I can say with all confidence that without ...