What Is Die Cutting?

In the modern world of mass-production, it has become absolutely vital to develop products faster. However, it is important at the same time to achieve precision as well. Well, fortunately, today’s CNC machining services are geared to meet these demands. In the earlier worlds, components were either machined individually or later on they were casted. However, no matter what the technique, a die was an absolute must in order to achieve mass-production within a short span of time. When CNC machines were not invented, engineers had to hand-make the components of the die. This consumed a lot of time. Additionally, without automation precision was not achieved. These imperfections then were carried forward onto the finished components as well.

What is a Die? 

In all its simplicity, a die is a hardened tool to forge the metal into shape. Often this is done when the material is either at room temperature or in the molten form. However, for the scope of this article lets limit ourselves to cold-press dies.

Now, in the modern world such dies are manufactured by companies offering precision CNC machining services. The companies may have an arsenal of machines that are robot operated; however, none is more used than CNC Milling machines. Milling refers to the act of precision cutting of metal using various suitable tools. These tools are manufactured as per the precise job requirement & only seasoned CNC Mill operators work on such highly sophisticated piece of equipment.

Coming back to our topic of discussion, in some cases a die is a special bended blade used to cut away pieces of material to precise specifications. The die specifications, angles measurements are all machined using CNC Machining Service providers. These companies have to be given the precise dimensions about the die. Thereafter, it is their prerogative to correctly shape the die using CNC Mills.

These CNC Machining service providers may have carryout various operations on the die like blanking, shaving, broaching and trimming. While earlier these processes took long time to be completed, with advanced CNC machines, the time for the process is cut down many-folds.

The designs of the die which were earlier drawn by hand are now-a-days done using Computer Aided Design (CAD) programs. The advantage of such CAD programs is that the time to conceptualize is brought down. It’s as if the ideas are literally born & created into virtual reality at the same time. Using these CAD, programs, one can simultaneously chalk-out the path of the cutting tool too. As with any CNC machine, the path of the cutting tool along with speed & depth are to be precisely controlled to achieve a smooth & perfect cut. Such cutting was the skill of only handful men. However, with such CNC machining services one can easily avail precision machining for their dies.

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