One (repaired) S&l Rk Die!

[ChrisJ]

Rings

Here one of mine....clearly filed off.

[Dave Kane]

That's what we need! Thanks Chris

I too am of the belief that the base of the ring was skived / shaved down in the finishing process. Why it was done I don't know....asthetics? Possibly to avoid a 'design' infringement?

I think that I was premature in assuming that the post war frame was the same thickness as the war time frames. The post war frame is various at .59 to .62 and a bit too thin to skive off much without leaving a wafer thin skin or even a hole.

Period frames however seem to be in the area of .70 to .75 which then would allow a taking down of the material and still leave a viable base.

The following are pics of the underside of the frame in the area of the dent / pock marks at the lower 3oc arm.

[Dave Kane]

1

[ChrisJ]

Dents

..

[ChrisJ]

Dents

So...it looks like the dent row was a male die feature

(as you know, I believe that the male could well have been the "hub" that produced the female...what better way to have two dies halves that fit exactly through all that beading ?)

[VIPER]

Measurements

Just out of curiosity, are there any measurements of the thickness of the frames of the 934/4 and 800/4 crosses............Jimmy

[Dietrich Maerz]

800-4 seems to be 0.6 mm average over 6 measurements, 935 seems to be also 0.6 mm

[Stephen Stout]

Wow that's interesting, another way for S&L to save a mark.

[ChrisJ]

So...it looks like the dent row was a male die feature

(as you know, I believe that the male could well have been the "hub" that produced the female...what better way to have two dies halves that fit exactly through all that beading ?)

What, no one picking up on this !!!...now I am disappointed

[Brian S]

Chris, it's just plain impossible...

[ChrisJ]

Chris, it's just plain impossible...

Why ?

[ChrisJ]

SShhh

Silence from Brian for all of 12 hours.......now that is really odd....(must be the effect of the approaching Lunar New Year)....come on Brian, tell us WHY.....I for one cant wait !

[ChrisJ]

Males..

OK...while we wait for Brian....thanks to Dave for continuing this topic, and trying to push forward our collective knowledge of S&L RK's.

A little while ago in another thread I muted the probability that the "dent row" was in fact the appearance of a male die problem.

To recap: the frames of an RK were stamped out using a female die half (resembling sunken detail in a block of steel) and a male (raised features on a block of steel). The two pressed together (with a spacer) over a blank of silver sheet then stamping out the frames...two identical frames halves being joined together with the core in the sandwich to make the RK.

Now...the "dent row" could either be a raised feature on the female, or an indented feature in the male. Dave's pictures clearly show that its a feature of the male.

What does that tell us ?

It tells us that the male was suffering as well as the female...it could have been impact damage, but the state of the rest of the frame in Dave's example indicates that it was in fact a progressive collapse of the male die in tandem but to a lesser degree with that of the female.

A further conclusion from Dave's shots is that the inside surface of the beading (to be clear..the underside of a frame that we dont normally see) is also detailed the same as the normally visible side. So the male was an exact fit into the female. Engineers amongst us will understand the incredible challange this would present....first make one side of the die, and then make separately an exact fitting negative for the other half of the die over all of those frame beading features ....

Nope.....that surely wasnt the way it was done !

I spectulate that the male was first produced by the master craftsman....and then chemically hardened, and then pressed into an annealed (softened by heating) steel block to produce the female. Both male (which is now the "hub" or mother die) and female forming the die set from which the frames were produced.

I further speculate that the male began to fail during the process of repairing the dies the first time (which ultimately produced the 935/4 "B" type series). Probably the male was pressed into the treated and softened female during this process which stressed the male unreasonably. Hence the many similar features, but also the strange differences we see between "A" and "B".

A total failure of the male (which was also the "hub" or mother die) would have been catastrophic...and therefore this process was probably not chanced a second time...and various measures were taken to briefly stem the failure of the die set.

This explains (to me anyway) why the "hub" was not used to produce further dies when logic would dictate that it could have done. In the first instance it was much easier to keep production going by performing a quck fix...but once the male problems started then this was no longer viable without chancing the total collapse of the male. Producing a new set of dies was a very time consuming and skilled venture that would have been avoided if at all possible....so containment (repair) was opted for.

Eventually the set failed to the point of absurdity and S&L were forced to produce a new die set for the later 1957 versions and disposed of the virtually useless 3R set...if a nice prestine hub had existed then the new die would have been a clone of the 3R examples.... but this wasnt the case.

Like Dave, I have detected a lot of rework in the area of the frame ring. I think that its perfectly reasonable to consider the photographic evidenced "dipped ring" RK's to be S&L crosses without the ring filed down. I dont suppose I am alone in finding the dipped ring quite ugly....and maybe the answer is no more complicated than that....it looked better filed down !

What is clear, well to me anyway, is that the S&L dies went through a hard and difficult life...and each example that we know tells its own story of that journey. For me these remain the most interesting and desirable RK's.

[ChrisJ]

Cold Forging

For those of you who are interested in the process of die making, can I recommend studying carefully the explanations in the following link ~

http://www.ganoksin.com/borisat/nenam/cold-gold-forging.htm

Have fun !

Interesting to note that slight over lubrication of the dies during the manufacturing process will cause surface "pocks"......so all you Oakleaves collectors, dont assume all such marks are only signs of casting and hence fakery !)

(Sorry Dave...dont want to take over the thread...over to you)

Chris

[Brian S]

Chris, the male die is not pushing into rubber or foam. If it were then the flaws on the underside of the die or the male die would naturally push into the soft upper surface. The upper surface in this case is a hard steel die. Unless the die were pressed so hard as to cause the male die extruding flaws to press upwards through the surface of the material inbetween the two die halves pressing the material out of its way, you would not see the flaws of the male die. The dent row on some crosses is crisp and clear which is a clear indication of a presence of material on the female die. Please don't be surprised if another 12 hours pass.