Number punches

Hi all has any one got a drawing or have they made a number an letter stamp jig,do have trouble making them look neat free hand.

If you do not receive better suggestions, this is for sure covered in one of GHT's books, but I cannot remember which one, the red or the green.

One thing you have to bear in mind is that a jig will only work well if the stamps are all made the same. So you might have to tune up the stamps themselves for ultimate success.

A simple thick walled U channel slightly shorter in the arms than the punch shank thickness works well for me. Hold the punch in with the thumb and whack the end. More feel than a nicely fitted square guide which, for me, gives better results.

I find the key to a properly neat job is to secure the guide and move the work underneath it with some sort of positive restraint at each position. Which can take rather longer to set up than you'd ideally like. I mislay the guide on a regular basis. Its gotten to the point that I'm more likely to just mill out a new one rather than spend time looking.

That said most of my punch marking jobs just need to be visible, not super neat. So I line up by eye and hit. Results are usually no worse than mildly inebriated. Quick'n easy but I wince every time I look at one.

Clive

A suggested use of the GHT Tapping & Staking tool is for letter an number stamping. He described a holder with a square through-hole and spring loading to hold the stamps. I've used this technique for, eg, my Quorn, and with a bit of practice, it works well.

If the raised metal around the imprint is removed with a very fine file, the result is comparable to engraving.

The green one is on the table beside me. This is not in the index, but I have only started to read the book today so I can't say it is not in the text.

We had a Pryor set of stamps at work which had a holder like this one. This make was the only one which showed the inside of the holder.

**LINK**

I recall mrpete222 having a video on the topic. Might be worth a search.

The GHT green book "Building the Universal Pillar Tool" page 65 'Special Staking Operations' covers the numbering operation.

Martyn

If punching a number freehand, say, 12345, as a right-hander I find it helps to start with the 5 and work to the left.

Depends on what you want to stamp the numbers or letters on to. GH Thomas's Universal Pillar Tool uses a holder for the punch then has the round lathe cross slide dial he is numbering held on an angle bracket below it.Bit more on it here LINKK

But if you are stamping on a flat surface there are other way too. One is to clamp a length of 1.5" angle iron on to the job and hold the punches against the angle iron one at a time as you whack them. You still have to use your own judgement for the spacing between letters or numbers. If you just line all the punches up at once, the spacing looks too wide.

Another way is to run a piece of masking tape along the job then you can feel when the raised letter or number on the punch hits the edge of the tape and so ensures a straight line. But unlike the angle iron, you have to hold the punch square so the letter or number is not lying over at an angle etc.

I've made up various special jigs for special jobs. For stamping numbers on the face of the indexing gear on a GHT Versatile Dividing Head I made a stub to hold the gear flat on a piece of plate, then a piece of angle iron went over the gear to hold the punch in place, with a vertical piece of steel screwed to the angle to hold the punch dead upright. Took longer to make the jig than to stamp the numbers!

Pics of jig mentioned in last post:

Hi John,

I made my own version of the GHT Pillar Tool for stamping letters and numbers and it works well for me, see here.

Thor

Hopper, counting fron zero to 23 appears to be an unusual way to mark a 24 hole dividing plate. Why did you do it that way?

.

It seems eminently logical to me

The ‘o’ is just a marker, which can represent zero, or can represent 24

... it may help if you think of it as numbered from 1 through 23

... much like the 24 hour analogue clock dial

MichaelG.

.

Edited to improve clarity

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 25/04/2020 08:43:55

Doing it that way numbers the gaps rather than the holes. as Michael has said quite sensible really.

regards Martin

I count 24 holes and 24 gaps - how many do you count? He has marked the holes, not the gaps.🙂

Not particularly like a 24h clock - unless he expects to divide each gap into minutes and seconds.

I will await the sensible/correct comment/explanation direct from the ’horse’s mouth’.

.

That is utterly irrelevant ... and frankly rather rude

Sorry I bothered trying to help you

MichaelG.

MEW issue 43 page 22 A simple number/letter punch jig

Nice Jig Hopper.

I'm not going to ask about the numbering scheme - the debate about whether '0' is a number has a long history - but makes perfect sense to me.

Regards,

IanT

Just to show that there's more than one way to skin a cat ....

I had need of a means to stamp a lot of numbers on a couple of circular plates and made the jig shown below to acheive that. (The picture is a photo set up, not how it was actually done!)

I wasn't entirely (at all, actually) satisfied with the results, so ended up remaking one plate and redoing the marking. Instead of engraving or punching the numbers, I tried drawing the scale in CAD on a strip of self-adhesive decal film such that the scale exactly fitted the circumference of the plate and the number positioning was "spot-on". Result:

The decal film won't be as durable as engraving or stamping but has the advantage of being readily replaceable when it has deteriorated sufficiently. You can compare the difference betwen the two methods for yourself.

John