Grinding Split Dies

Any one know of articles on grinding split dies to refurbish them? Especially small sizes; 5BA and smaller.

With reference to the Quorn a guy called Thomas gave instructions on tap grinding which are excellent. Not so good on die grinding.

Thanks,

Dave T

You can sharpen dies by using a grinding point in a Dremel tool. Run the hand-held Dremel down the front cutting edge of the teeth inside the four holes in the die that form the cutting edges.

You can use a Dremel to sharpen taps too, just run the stone carefully down the length of the flute. If you do it with the Dremel axis roughly in line with the tap axis, the curved surface of the grinding point gives a good cutting angle.

Hi, I agree with what Hopper has said and I've done them that way myself a number of times.

Regards Nick.

Prof. Chaddock dealt with die sharpening in his Quorn book. He drives the spindle at 15000rpn using a large wooden motor pulley. Grinding is by a piece of carborundum shellaced to a carrier.

Edited By Clive Brown 1 on 08/02/2022 09:03:34

Thanks for the replies, guys.

I have tried the dremel method with some success. I have also used diamond files which work quite well.

I made a Quorn cutter grinder including the high speed pulley and die holding fixture. My interest is in finding information of how to set up to achieve standard cutting angles.

Examination of smaller size commercial dies reveals a range of cutting angles from hooks to 90degrees.

For taps it is easy just offset the cutting edge and feed the tap radially into the wheel. Grinding the taper with relief is also simple.

It doesn't seem so obvious with a die, particularly a small sized one. How do you grind the taper with relief to the entry to the die?