Buying new ones will make you flinch at the price, so Yahoo Auctions or Used Machinery Information Department Store and similar places are good places to search.
Once you use one,
you’re sure to think “wow, this is so convenient…” or maybe not.
When it comes to dies, Fuji Kiko and others sell a wide variety of highly convenient options.
Thinking back, the first die I ever bought was probably Cad-All CK.
For our shop, which works mostly with sheet metal, it’s an ace striker of a die.
If you’re rounding the four corners, you could do it with a belt sander instead. But if you use a die, you can finish with the same radius reliably, so it’s quick, uniform, and beautiful.
You probably won’t be asked, but even if someone asks “what’s the radius here? What’s the chamfer?” you can answer them.
This Cad-All CK rotates the upper blade so you can select which blade you want to use, making it extremely quick to work with.
I checked Yahoo Auctions and the Used Machinery Information Department Store, but there aren’t many available these days.
And the prices seem to have gotten quite steep. A few years ago, anything under 50,000 yen was standard…
After getting a taste of this die, I went crazy buying all sorts of dies.
Recently we got an Amada shearing machine at our shop, so I disposed of it, but the set shearing machine was hard to use.
Including the back gauge, it was just too heavy—it was a real hassle to use even a little bit.
I also bought a variable corner cutter (disposed of).
It was like a dream tool for a moment, but it was so heavy that there were almost no situations where I actually needed to vary and cut (；∀；).
After all, orthodox and simple tools are the most practical.
It might be the same with everything, but you can only really judge what’s good and what’s bad after using it in your own environment. It’s a daily puzzle (ﾟДﾟ).
