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bb8it

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About bb8it

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  1. Well, to throw in my two cents on this issue of Hand Presses. I am retired and one of my hobbies is working leather. So I'm no expert leather worker, that said, here is what I have found out about hand presses for snaps, grommets, and rivets. There seems to be no common size, or terminology between the different countries, manufacturers, or vendors when discussing these machines and dies. And they all want theirs to be proprietary machines and dies so you spend all your money with them ( one my pet peeves, the word proprietary) /. But having spent several hours/days reading and researching, I'm still pretty confused. But I am resolving a few of my issues and problems. The "green hand press" directly from China has dies that are 19 mm base hole with a top thread of 8 mm.(see pics) KAM presses do not have threads but a grooved tang that you tighten a set screw to hold. I didn't like this method as I can never find an allen wrench the right size when I need it, and I hate breaking up sets of wrenches to dedicate one just for one use. But I do like the bottom die as it has a 'button' you push to insert it and when released, holds the bottom in. Kinda cool, but not worth having to look for an allen wrench for the top die. Gold Star dies are smaller, not sure of bottom diameter but the top thread is 1/4" x 24 which is not a common thread. SAE common threads are 1/4"x20 course and 1/4"x28 fine. I like Gold Star dies, but had already purchased a "green hand press". I have only seen pictures of the Tandy dies, but they are expensive. So are other brands I have seen especially the commercial machines. The Chinese dies run between $9 to $15 dollars a set, the guy in the UK sells dies for roughly $20 a set, and I have seen them on ebay from $9 to close to $50. Most of mine are the $9 variety with me breaking down a buying some that are special that cost $20. Like the Gold Star pearl snap dies. So what I did was this, I have an old atlas 6" lathe so I turned a small insert so the gold star dies 'fit' the bottom hole, then I took an 8 mm bolt and in my lathe, drilled and tapped it to 1/4"x24 (had to buy a special tap to thread this). Now I can use the Gold Star dies in my green machine. I also had to drill another hole in the threaded shaft to allow me to move the shaft up slightly, as clearance between the dies are set for the "green machine" dies and with the Gold Star dies with the modified insert and 8mm threaded bold there was not enough room. but with a hole about 1/2" down from the original, and by removing some of the bolt hex head to 'thin' it up, and the bottom insert only has a thin 1/4" or so, lip, I am happy to say it seems to work great. The second hole in the shaft is pretty easy to move and so I removed the cotter pin and use a nail to slid into the hold between the body and springs as the spring holds the nail in place securely enough to use it but is easy to pull out and move to the other hole to switch between dies/inserts. I have ordered some more dies, both from Gold Star (their pearl snap dies are the best for setting peal snaps as they are Teflon lined to prevent marring the button snap) I have the three common spring snap dies from china (831 etc.) and ring snap dies are ordered. I have single cap rivet dies from the UK vendor coming as well. So I'm still learning and putting this machine and dies together. But in a few months I will have almost all of the operations figured out. Just to mention grommets, they seem to be more of a 'standard'. And I have had very little issue with grommet dies and setting grommets. My dies punch the hole and set the grommet in one operation and as long as you have the correct grommet die size in the machine, they come out without marring or bending and look clean and hold very tightly. Hope this helps anyone just getting into hand presses as I had a real hard time learning the differences without wasting precious resources in getting this setup. I will have to revisit is once I get all my dies in and get the process of using them down. As I found it a very confusing and way too complicated an issue since every vendor wants to make theirs unique so you have to buy all of your items from them.
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