How to check your die space to determine the best possible operational condition.

Most people check the (4) corners of the slide to the top of the bolster to determine the condition of the die space parallelism.  Let me suggest a different approach that will show what you really need to know.

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  1. Place the slide on bottom dead center.
  2. Measure the die space on the center line of the slide front to rear and left to right taking measurements every 6-12”.  This will show the condition of the slide were the tooling mounts.
  3. Shim and adjust the tool to off set any slide or bolster distortion, thus making the tooling believe that it is running in a perfectly square box. 

As long as the tooling sees a perfectly square condition, it will run at optimum condition even in a machine that may not be perfect. 

Jeff Fredline