What should I make out of old big Danly tooling???

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Dustin beyer

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I was given a big 6”x24” danly die the material is all in great shape and I think it’s tool steel the top plate is 1 1/8 thick and the bottom is 1 7/16 thick. I just don’t know what to repurpose the into?? Gauge block, angle blocks, parallels? is it practical to try making a sine plate/bar? something I can use milling and turning?!? And good ideas I’m open to anything and any info on the die and what type of machine it was for, or what kind of material hardening/heat treatment and machine ability of it I’d really appreciate thanks
 

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A lot depends on how hard the material is I think. Can you file on this material or does it just skate over it?
I had a chunk of hardened die material and used it as the basis to make an anvil since it was way too hard to try
and machine on it. The first step would be to make some determination as to what kind of metal it might be
and also get some idea of it's hardness.
 
That's most likely not "Tool steel".

Probably higher quality that regular bar stock, but unless it is a specialty component its best regarded as unknown mild steel.

I would put it up on FBMP and use the proceeds to buy steel of known makeup.
 
That falls into the "mystery metal" category.

Step one- Touch it with a file. Don't wreck it, as you never know what feature or profile you might want to save, or work off of, or build something to fit "as is", but if you can cut it with a "normal" file, you can cut it on a machine tool. On the other hand, if you CAN'T cut it with a file, it's going to be difficult at best to cut or machine.
As for what you should make it into... Well, anything that fits within the existing bounderies. To me that doesn't look like a useful thing "as is", but I see some round stock, some flat stock. I'd take it apart for storage and put it in the cutoff's or "random spare metal" pile. I wouldn't sweat any existing heat treatments, as it pretty much either can be machined (file cuts it) or it can't be machined (file won't touch it). But being an unknown alloy, successfully heat treating moving forward is pretty much out of the question.
 
I could use it if you were interested in for swapping it for a big box of different bits of if metal.
 
No I don’t think it’s tool steel it’s HIGH IMPACT from probably 100 tons of press ram stamping day and night and tool steel wouldn’t be conducive for that I’d definitely think tho something that has substantial wear resistance and hard especially since all sides are precision ground. I decided to make a new top for my cross slide that has t slots. I’ve roughed out the pocket with a 3/4” end mill and the chips seem pretty hard?!? I don’t know but I’m about to start milling the dovetails and I’ll put up some pics if anyone is interested and thanks for all your input
 
Danly die sets are HRS. Edges are torch cut (unless specified otherwise), so have a somewhat hard skin but soft everywhere else. The pins & bushings are worth way more that the plates.
 
Thank you very much and basically what I found out when I started milling on them. And I totally figured the pins and bushings are tool grade if anything but the plate being 6”x48” 1.5” thick of material is something more useful for a project. and yes they are cut with a track torch. Thanks abunch for the information
 
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