Alignment of dies
AssigneeWatermarx Technology Pty Limited
InventorsAlan John Fawcett, Angela Mary O'Dea
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A set of dies for embossing or debossing is disclosed. The set has a female die (4, 80) and a male die (7, 67) each which has a steel backing plate (5, 47, 75). One of the dies is strongly magnetically attracted to a base plate (1, 68) which results in a weak magnetic attraction between the two dies (4, 7 or 67, 80). The weak magnetic attraction enables the set of dies to be substantially automatically self-aligning. Furthermore, such a set of dies can be used with a cutting and creasing die (50) to permit embossing or debossing simultaneously with cutting and/or folding during the same run.
Claims10
A method comprising:
- (a) securing a first die to a base plate using a first attractive magnetic force between the first die and the base plate, at least a portion of the first die comprising a magnetically permeable material and at least a portion of the base plate comprising a magnetic material;
- (b) placing a second die atop the first die, at least a portion of the second die comprising a magnetically permeable material, one of the first and second dies comprising a female die and the other of the first and second dies comprising a male die that is complementary in shape to the female die;
- (c) adjusting a position of the second die until a second attractive magnetic force between the second die and the base plate urges the male die into alignment with the female die;
- (d) affixing the second die to a platen or cylinder;
- and
- (e) performing at least one of a stamping, embossing, debossing, cutting or creasing step after performing steps (a) through (d).
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.