Making medal Dies (to strike medals)

[DMM]

Hi all, I've been contacted about cutting some dies for striking medals.
I'd be recutting a pattern from the late 1700s(!!!) as the original dies have deteriorated. I'm confident I can do the actual cutting/carving, but I was wondering if anyone could suggest any books, websites, or even videos about the process of making/cutting dies for medal or coins?
I have a contact who can supply the actual blank dies and do the striking, but I'd like to do as much research as possible beforehand because I'm sure there's some detail or consideration to do with the cutting that I don't know about yet.

Any help at all would be appreciated

 

[monk]

when in doubt about any procedure, i gravitate to youtube. you never know what's available till you try. ebay may be a source of books.forums ? good luck

 

[Dave London]

You might look into hobo nickel, carving as several of the people who do hobo Nichols also do die cutting Joe P is the only one I remember at this time also the American numismatic society Museum in Colorado Springs Colorado shows die making and they also have summer seminars on the topic like a one week class

 

[AllenClapp]

Don't forget to consider both the metallurgy and the appropriate hardening procedures. Recent adventures by folks trying to make beading tools suitable for long use on hard firearms metals and to reproduce the old NgraveR firearms stamps and similar stamps often used on firearms in the last few hundred years have experienced difficult issues finding the right hardening procedures hard enough to provide a long life and soft enough not to fracture.

 

[Martin Strolz]

Hello,
I did such jobs with my students in the school for engravers in Steyr. Not that easy! I give you a short overview of the process.
The first picture shows the Original medal. (The dies were lost...) The Austrian Mint, where some of my former students work, offered help in the form of Laser scans of the original. If you look at the second picture, the scan already shows no real sharpness e.g. at the edges of the lettering. This results form scanning the original medal. Normally a larger model is made, scanned and the resulting (triangulated cloud point) scan data then is scaled down. This makes for a far more better description of the surface/shapes due to the higher density of points.
We made the dies from tool steel. The 3D data of the scan was used for milling the relief with a CNC machine. This has to be a precision machine with high speed spindle, built in tool length measuring etc. We had equipment to grind fine carbide tool tips in the workshop and measure the diameter and angle.
We were quite experienced in this type of machining, but it is impossible to create the character and precision of a hand cut die with a rotating tool that has a rounded tip. As a result, we had to work over the relief by hand. The first step always must be to get rid of the traces, left by even the finest of tools. These are mostly circular or parallel lines. The distance between passes can be chosen to be very small, but then milling that takes a very long time. After machining we had to find a way to grind or scrape very finely.
Then we worked with hand tools, hand push gravers and delicate punches mainly. There is no need to push metal around, just create sharpness and lessen the visible traces from machining. You can see this in the skin of the snake and the leaves, traces of punch work are left on purpose.
After hardening we made medals in copper and silver. We used the school´s own 500 tons hydraulic press for this.
I strongly recommend using scanning and milling technology, combined with hand engraving skills.
Cutting dies directly in the negative was the old way to do this. Then the reduction machine was invented and the dies were cut from a larger model. Laser and CNC is the latest development, but does not tell us anything about the artistic quality of the products.

 

[gtsport]

late 1700's isn't too difficult, depending on how accurate you want the die making to be versus the final product. by that time, many dies were made with piece punches, letter punches, bust punches, device punches, etc. You can cut those in the positive and punch them into the dies. Do you have pictures of what you are going to do ?

 

[frank29]

Recutting a die from the late 1700s is a rare opportunity, and you're wise to research thoroughly before beginning. Search YouTube or archive footage for videos showing traditional die sinking—there are some gems from mints and museums.

 

[mitch]

See if you can track down Amayak Stepanyan. He has a ton of experience in this sort of thing.

 

[DMM]

Thanks for all your help! I've found a bunch of videos on youtube and spoken with a die manufacturer in Birmingham.

I just spoke with the person organizing the engraving and got permission to post photos of the medal they have. The medal I have a moment is stamped from an early 1900s remake of the original 1700s one, and is heavily worn so a lot of the fine details are lost. They have two of the 1700s medals that I'll be able to use as reference but obviously they want to keep them safe until we're going ahead with everything. I've seen high resolution pictures of the originals, and the level of detail is absolutely incredible, especially in the faces of the three muses, in the remake they seem to have gotten damaged by rust leaving them blotchy/bloated looking.
The medal is sterling silver and about 54mm or 2 1/8 inches wide.
you can see the large amount of damage on the die in the last picture

 

[mitch]

I’m curious about the… relationship?… between the die and the reverse of the medallion. The cracks in the die are much more pronounced than I would expect in the medallion, while showing virtually none of the pitting. It kinda looks like the medallion was cast from a mold made from the die, not struck directly from it. Which would make sense if the die is that damaged and would be unlikely to withstand the impact. The medallion also has a couple stamps, “T.W.” & “? ? Y”, that might be artisan signatures or some sort of proofmarks? Interesting…

 

[Martin Strolz]

The image clearly shows that these dies were engraved directly as negatives using gravers. However, the lettering was created using stamps. The consistent depth of the wide and very narrow parts of the letters supports this. The surface is flat. Likewise, the fact that even the small typeface is relatively raised is also evident. Sharply defined lettering with such fine hairlines cannot be (re)produced using CNC milling technology.

 

[DMM]

I’m curious about the… relationship?… between the die and the reverse of the medallion. The cracks in the die are much more pronounced than I would expect in the medallion, while showing virtually none of the pitting. It kinda looks like the medallion was cast from a mold made from the die, not struck directly from it. Which would make sense if the die is that damaged and would be unlikely to withstand the impact. The medallion also has a couple stamps, “T.W.” & “? ? Y”, that might be artisan signatures or some sort of proofmarks? Interesting…

From what I can see looking at the die under microscope it seems like the die cracked and was 'repaired' with something like lead at some point which has been flexing open under the pressure when striking resulting in the more pronounced crack lines.
The stamps are manufacturing stamps, the 'T.W.' is the makers mark from the jewelers supplying the medals, the next ones in order are the Hibernia stamp meaning it was made in Ireland, then an Irish harp with a crown which means it was assayed in the assay office in Dublin Castle, and then there's a date letter, the 'Y' in that font and stamp shape places it's manufacture in 1966.
On the other side, under the three muses, you can see the remains of the name of the man who made the dies, I can't remember his full name off hand but I believe his last name was 'Woodhouse'

The image clearly shows that these dies were engraved directly as negatives using gravers. However, the lettering was created using stamps. The consistent depth of the wide and very narrow parts of the letters supports this. The surface is flat. Likewise, the fact that even the small typeface is relatively raised is also evident. Sharply defined lettering with such fine hairlines cannot be (re)produced using CNC milling technology.

You're absolutely correct, this one is a remake of the original that was made in the early 1900s before cnc machines.

 

[Mike Cirelli]

It's a shame the man that could answer all your questions just passed away this year. Ron Landis he was an expert like no other in with this subject.

 

[peterwgilroy]

Let me know if you need more info regarding die making, heat-treating, etc. I'm fairly new to hand-engraving dies, but have a lot of die making experience in other capacities like with a model and a Reducer/replicator machine. I have some papers written about some of the various die making options that I can send to you, my email is gilroy@bdtmfg.com

 

[gtsport]

Let me know if you need more info regarding die making, heat-treating, etc. I'm fairly new to hand-engraving dies, but have a lot of die making experience in other capacities like with a model and a Reducer/replicator machine. I have some papers written about some of the various die making options that I can send to you, my email is gilroy@bdtmfg.com

I also cut dies and would love to receive copies of your papers, if you would. gtsport@aol.com