quote:
Originally posted by Fred Prinz (aka "Frogprince"):
Gaspare, Thank you for posting the images, they really do help visualizing the process. If I understood Hapur correctly, here is a simulation of the (inside) "punch" portion of the set. With it pushing the sheet metal into the cavity of the die. While ordinarily I would think that the punch would be made of steel because of a lack of lateral support. Perhaps he will correct me (?). FP
A little hard to explain with my poor english
What I'm trying to say is that there were no punch at all. Best example is cardboard. You have only female die, matrix. Place on it sheet metal, cardboard on top and turn on press. There could be many materials used leather, rubber, aluminum (not in the war time) but before etc. It may sound not seriously but with this thin sheetmetal and since there is no need for making clear picture inside the ring this is the right way. Probably better would be if I took photosession when doing something like this. When I started to do this many things sounded illogical and "kitchen grade", I didn't believe my grandfather and other old timers who have worked for themselves and for serious jewelry manufacture in 1930ies-50ies with hundreds of employees. Now I have a lot of heavy industrial equipment (I doubt that most of german jewelry firms had it at war time) and I'm more than sure that there is no easier and faster way to do this. And again you have to keep in mind that this was not really jewelry what you are collecting now, it was period massproduction (modern china if I can say so).
