Brand new A hoods

[Adam Wright]

I only trust family, oh and Big John, but they call him a Wannbe Wright Brother at Subway where we eat every day.

[Norm Miller]

Hell Adam, you can't go Wrong with another Wright. Or Big John Wrong.

Norm

[Adam Wright]

Norm, I have never been brave enough to call Big John wrong about anything, but you go right ahead...

[Ron LaDow]

Mike,
Some guys have figured out how to make really small stampings

[Mike DeJonge]

Ron
your parts must have 356 Porsche content in them, or your posting will get moved. Those are SBC parts

[Ron LaDow]

Mike,
I wish they were mine, but that's far beyond my skills. Dunno who made them; got the image in an email. But the number of guys making miniature IC engines isn't large. A Goggle-searches would find him pretty quickly.
Pretty snazzy stamping! And I wonder if the rockers are stamped also?

[Jim Karaba]

Ron
your parts must have 356 Porsche content in them, or your posting will get moved. Those are SBC parts

Correction....very small block chevy

[Ron LaDow]

Jim,
According to the builder, it's the smallest:
http://www.craftsmanshipmuseum.com/Moyer.htm

[Mike DeJonge]

Here is the latest news. this is the female side of the die for the inner hood structure. It is sitting waiting to be polished. Hired a new person to start on Monday, and his new job will be to polish this die by hand, no relative of mine. Should take about 4 -5 weeks of hand polishing, while he is doing this the male side of this die will go into the mill for more machining.

[Mike DeJonge]

this is the male side of the inner hood structure being readied for the mill

[Mike DeJonge]

and here we have the draw pad for the 2 halves of the inner hood structure dies. the draw pad helps to control the sheet metal movement while the part is being pressed.

[Ron LaDow]

Mike,
This "hand polishing"; I presume it doesn't have to do with shop-towels, abrasive compound and tired elbows?

[Mike DeJonge]

yes lots of elbow grease. will start at 40 grit and work our way to 400 grit. will be sore arms, shoulders and wrists for a few days

[Ron LaDow]

And that steel is roughly what duro?
I'm beginning to develop sympathetic aches already...

[Mike DeJonge]

we don't know the hardness, and we don't buy it that way, otherwise it would be priced out of this world. We just specify cold rolled steel.
If we were stamping rims or thicker material we would have to specify the die material, but we are just stamping thin, soft(relatively) sheet metal. We could heat treat the dies after machining to make them harder and reduce the wear, but we do not do that either, that would be done if you were making 10,000 or more parts on one die, and you wanted them to last longer than normal, with less wear.
Not many dies are heat treated because there are not to many parts that go longer than runs of 10,000 pcs. Heat treating large dies is a very costly procedure. Thats why we have new car models every year