Im looking to stamp/emboss some really thin sheetmetal on the cheap. Nothing fancy, just some letters (no designs). I sent an inquiry to a company that makes the dies/stamps but im wondering if any of you have some experience with doing this stuff for very little $$

Ive seen the individual dies that you hit with a hammer one letter at a time, im looking for the next step up (something i can put in a press).

 

I know I saw the individual stamps at harbor freight the other day, but i didn't look closely enough to see if they had anything more than those. I'd check there though, they have tons of random weird ---- like that

 

MSC sells ---- like that, cheap toolboxes too

 

my dads job title is a stamping press operator. if you design the ---- on cad, tolerance the metal between the die faces, youll be golden. otherwise get a cnc and get plate with letters cut

 

im looking for the cheapest way possible...which so far looks like taking 5 sets of the harbor freight stamp sets and making soemthig to hold them with (and then putting it into a press). It sucks to have to buy 5 sets but i need a lot of repeat letters. I got a quote of 140 to make an actual one-piece stamp, and its only 1 1/4" :1

 

page 1893 at www.mcmaster.com has the sets you're talking about, but they're more than 140

I tried to give you a link but it just gave me some gibberish about java script.

 

I'd just get some steel letters (like for an address/street name), a block of fairly dense wood (stiff but wont crack), then put the metal between the two in the press (between steel plates if its a normal bottle jack press). You can use shims to control one side from not going in further, and you'd get the thin metal signs in notime.

This was what I was going to do for custom stainless gaskets (like those ribbed T3 gaskets), except use wire secured to the plate directly to make the impression. Cutting would be with normal methods :P