- Joined
- Nov 23, 2014
- Messages
- 2,577
I’m a long time member of the A. C. Gilbert Heritage Society which is primarily a club of Erector set collectors. The ACGHS (www.ACGHS.org) hosts an annual National meeting which this year will be in Huntsville, Alabama. The club is a fairly tight-knit group and most members are known for something. I’m known as a former editor of the club newsletter, set layout diagram book author and reproducer of parts. One part I make is part number ‘NU’ parachute jumpers.
Lifesavers hosted an exhibit at the 1939 World’s Fair in New York; the iconic parachute jump ride. By the way, the structure was recently restored and is standing on Coney Island. Fair goers were pulled up the jump tower via a cable and floated down to the ground riding a parachute. A. C. Gilbert took advantage of the fervor over the popular ride and in 1940 came out with an Erector set model of the Lifesaver parachute jump ride.
Larger Erector sets from 1940 – 1962 came with parts to build the ride model and included 4 of the part number ‘NU’ parachute jumpers. The part varied through those years with either white or red silk parachutes and bamboo or red plastic struts. I usually make up 20 – 40 sets of the parachuters a year and sell everything I make. I’m always looking for ways to improve my throughput and decided to FINALLY make a punch and die to cut out the parachute guys.
The men are two-sided, same image on both sides, glued to a piece of chipboard. I usually glue the images to the chipboard and cut them out by hand while watching TV. I’d hate to think of the number of hours spent doing this when I could have been out in my shop! I’ve made over 500 sets of the NU’s over the years or hand cut out 2000+ of those little guys . . .
OK, on to the die. The parachute guy blank is about .65” x 1.7”. My Roper Whitney #218 punch press uses 1 ¼”, 2 1/8” or 2 ¾” dies. I went with the 2 ¾” die for this project. The die was made from a piece of 3” OD, 2” ID tubing with an O-2 3/8” thick insert. I didn’t have any O-2 in that diameter so went the route shown here because of materials available.
Started by turning the piece of tubing to diameter, cut off in the band saw, then faced & bored on the lathe. The die base then went to the mill. My O-2 stock on hand is just over 2” wide and just over 3/8” thick, so I notched the die base for the O-2 slab to set in place. Once the base was machined, the O-2 slab was clamped in place and doweled on either end for locating. Then (4) 8-32 holes were drilled and tapped; clearance holes through the O-2, tapped holes into the die base.
It dawned on me while contemplating the hole locations that my mill has a DRO with a PCD function. Don’t know what the acronym stands for, but it’s holes on a circle/arc. A quick protractor check showed 15 deg. angled holes above and below the dowels would work great. Set the mill at the center of the die base, entered the circle diameter, started at 0 deg., ended at 360 deg. and chose 21 holes. The DRO considers 0 deg. and 360 deg. as two different points, so I always add one to the number of holes on a circle and start at 0 and end at 360. Otherwise I’d have to calculate the last hole angle which in this case would have been 345 deg., but frankly I find it easier to just add one to the number of holes and always start/end at 0/360.
Once the O-2 was fastened into place the profile of the parachute guys was drilled/milled into the tool steel. Nothing earth-shattering here, fortunately the widths were all standard end mill sizes. I crept up to the final pass with progressively larger end mills and as expected went over-sized on the slot widths by about 0.003 – 0.005”.
Next, the punch. The R-W #218 takes either ½” or 1” diameter punch shanks. I made the punch body from a piece of 1 ¾” diameter CRS. Turned one end down to 1.000” in my Grizzly G0709, then on to my Clausing #5418 with a 5-C collet chuck for facing.
Plan was to attach a piece of O-2 tool steel to the CRS punch body. I Dykem’d up a piece of O-2 and clamped it to the die, then scribed the profile on the punch piece of O-2. This piece was then clamped to the punch body which was held in my mill with a 1” 5-C collet and a square collet block.
I drilled and tapped a hole through the O-2 into the punch body for securing. Once screwed in place, rotational tram was verified with a wiggler. It was easy to leave the clamping screw a little loose to rotate the O-2 until it was square to the table. Then two dowel pins were added for locating. Next step was milling away the extra O-2 on top of the punch body. Once it was close (within 0.005” of final size), the O-2 was removed from the mill/punch body.
Oh baby, do I like having an Oliver die filer for fine detail work! It took about an hour of filing, but finally got there. Kept Dykeming and scribing the overlap between the punch O-2 and the die O-2. Had a big grin on my face when the punch slipped through the die with about 0.005” of room to spare!
Back to the mill with the punch body to cut in some anti-rotation notches. Then screwed the punch O-2 piece to the punch body and set everything in the R-W #218. I made a quick and dirty fence from a piece of sheet metal held in place on the press table with some rare earth magnets. I’ll likely do a POTD to make something a little more solid in the future, but the quick and dirty worked OK. I haven't hardened and tempered the O-2 yet; after all it should last a very long time as it's only cutting paper. Maybe next time I fire up the oxyacetylene torch they'll get the finishing touches . . .
This is where I bang my head against the wall for spending many, many hours for years cutting those little guys out by hand. I’d cut out around 36 guys in about an hour and end up with calloused hands. Now I do one about every 5 seconds. Sure is nice to be able to combine two hobbies, gonna have plenty of parachutes available at the Huntsville show!
Bruce
Lifesavers hosted an exhibit at the 1939 World’s Fair in New York; the iconic parachute jump ride. By the way, the structure was recently restored and is standing on Coney Island. Fair goers were pulled up the jump tower via a cable and floated down to the ground riding a parachute. A. C. Gilbert took advantage of the fervor over the popular ride and in 1940 came out with an Erector set model of the Lifesaver parachute jump ride.
Larger Erector sets from 1940 – 1962 came with parts to build the ride model and included 4 of the part number ‘NU’ parachute jumpers. The part varied through those years with either white or red silk parachutes and bamboo or red plastic struts. I usually make up 20 – 40 sets of the parachuters a year and sell everything I make. I’m always looking for ways to improve my throughput and decided to FINALLY make a punch and die to cut out the parachute guys.
The men are two-sided, same image on both sides, glued to a piece of chipboard. I usually glue the images to the chipboard and cut them out by hand while watching TV. I’d hate to think of the number of hours spent doing this when I could have been out in my shop! I’ve made over 500 sets of the NU’s over the years or hand cut out 2000+ of those little guys . . .
OK, on to the die. The parachute guy blank is about .65” x 1.7”. My Roper Whitney #218 punch press uses 1 ¼”, 2 1/8” or 2 ¾” dies. I went with the 2 ¾” die for this project. The die was made from a piece of 3” OD, 2” ID tubing with an O-2 3/8” thick insert. I didn’t have any O-2 in that diameter so went the route shown here because of materials available.
Started by turning the piece of tubing to diameter, cut off in the band saw, then faced & bored on the lathe. The die base then went to the mill. My O-2 stock on hand is just over 2” wide and just over 3/8” thick, so I notched the die base for the O-2 slab to set in place. Once the base was machined, the O-2 slab was clamped in place and doweled on either end for locating. Then (4) 8-32 holes were drilled and tapped; clearance holes through the O-2, tapped holes into the die base.
It dawned on me while contemplating the hole locations that my mill has a DRO with a PCD function. Don’t know what the acronym stands for, but it’s holes on a circle/arc. A quick protractor check showed 15 deg. angled holes above and below the dowels would work great. Set the mill at the center of the die base, entered the circle diameter, started at 0 deg., ended at 360 deg. and chose 21 holes. The DRO considers 0 deg. and 360 deg. as two different points, so I always add one to the number of holes on a circle and start at 0 and end at 360. Otherwise I’d have to calculate the last hole angle which in this case would have been 345 deg., but frankly I find it easier to just add one to the number of holes and always start/end at 0/360.
Once the O-2 was fastened into place the profile of the parachute guys was drilled/milled into the tool steel. Nothing earth-shattering here, fortunately the widths were all standard end mill sizes. I crept up to the final pass with progressively larger end mills and as expected went over-sized on the slot widths by about 0.003 – 0.005”.
Next, the punch. The R-W #218 takes either ½” or 1” diameter punch shanks. I made the punch body from a piece of 1 ¾” diameter CRS. Turned one end down to 1.000” in my Grizzly G0709, then on to my Clausing #5418 with a 5-C collet chuck for facing.
Plan was to attach a piece of O-2 tool steel to the CRS punch body. I Dykem’d up a piece of O-2 and clamped it to the die, then scribed the profile on the punch piece of O-2. This piece was then clamped to the punch body which was held in my mill with a 1” 5-C collet and a square collet block.
I drilled and tapped a hole through the O-2 into the punch body for securing. Once screwed in place, rotational tram was verified with a wiggler. It was easy to leave the clamping screw a little loose to rotate the O-2 until it was square to the table. Then two dowel pins were added for locating. Next step was milling away the extra O-2 on top of the punch body. Once it was close (within 0.005” of final size), the O-2 was removed from the mill/punch body.
Oh baby, do I like having an Oliver die filer for fine detail work! It took about an hour of filing, but finally got there. Kept Dykeming and scribing the overlap between the punch O-2 and the die O-2. Had a big grin on my face when the punch slipped through the die with about 0.005” of room to spare!
Back to the mill with the punch body to cut in some anti-rotation notches. Then screwed the punch O-2 piece to the punch body and set everything in the R-W #218. I made a quick and dirty fence from a piece of sheet metal held in place on the press table with some rare earth magnets. I’ll likely do a POTD to make something a little more solid in the future, but the quick and dirty worked OK. I haven't hardened and tempered the O-2 yet; after all it should last a very long time as it's only cutting paper. Maybe next time I fire up the oxyacetylene torch they'll get the finishing touches . . .
This is where I bang my head against the wall for spending many, many hours for years cutting those little guys out by hand. I’d cut out around 36 guys in about an hour and end up with calloused hands. Now I do one about every 5 seconds. Sure is nice to be able to combine two hobbies, gonna have plenty of parachutes available at the Huntsville show!
Bruce