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Dimple Dies

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Daniel S.

Well Known Member
Guys.
I have to ask a question... I broke my 3/32" dimple die yesterday. I started shopping around at the normal tool shops. Is there legitimately a difference between a $40.00 "spring back" dimple die set and the plane old $12.00 dimple die from ACS? I can't tell you what kind I've been using for the past 3-4 months because it came in my Isham tool kit. If there is a noticable difference, could you please explain?

Thanks
 
Simple Answer

Cleaveland dimple dies are certainly the best you can find.

They produce crisp dimples and let the skin around all flat. I don't have the words to better explain that, but on my skins you can easily tell which dies I used just by looking from an angle with some light. With Cleaveland dies, absolutely no skin deformation is visible while with brand X dies, you can see some waves around.
 
Cleaveland A-OK!

I use their dimple dies and sell them too, the best I have seen. :)

They are worth every penny.
 
Thanks guys. I ordered a die from cleaveland... I'mlsa tool snob anyways ;). I broke it trying to get fancy dimpling a couple holes I forgot about. It was totally misuse of my tools.:eek:
 
I received a surprise tank dimple die in the mail yesterday from Cleaveland. Seems that they were not satisfied with the quality of one that I ordered a few months ago, so they shipped me a new one.

I've yet to use the original die, so I was unaware that there was even the potential for an issue.

That's about as good as customer service can get! And definitely makes paying just a bit more worthwhile!

BTW, the note in the shipment said that this was a very small batch of dies, so not many people got a new one (fewer than 3 dozen).
 
mculver said:
I received a surprise tank dimple die in the mail yesterday from Cleaveland. Seems that they were not satisfied with the quality of one that I ordered a few months ago, so they shipped me a new one.

I've yet to use the original die, so I was unaware that there was even the potential for an issue.

That's about as good as customer service can get! And definitely makes paying just a bit more worthwhile!

BTW, the note in the shipment said that this was a very small batch of dies, so not many people got a new one (fewer than 3 dozen).
Click to expand...

I saw the ship notice on one for me, but I hadn't picked up the package yet to see the details.

Great way to do business. :)
 
Thanks for the positive comments. Great way to start a day.

The 3/32 die has a small pilot, and our dies are very 'hard' with tight tolerances between the male and female, so they don't tolerate a side load very well. We do replace our dies for free if they break due to normal where, but unfortunately not due to:
Daniel S. said:
<snip>It was totally misuse of my tools.:eek:
Click to expand...

While gun-shy of even using the term 'tank dies' on the forum, the recent discussion did provoke some testing, which I did by pulling stock dies off the shelf... One dimple and I thought "what the... heck", after over a day of measuring, testing, pulling logs of when we machined what, we found the problem. It seems that after making a custom die for a builder, the numbers in our CNC program did not get returned to the correct measurement. About 200 dies were made with the wrong numbers. Luckily only 30ish were shipped. Those customers now have new males en-route. By contacting customers directly we found "customer zero" where the previous customer had the correct die and the next customer had a bad one. So I think we have the problem nailed down, but make a sample and if your tank die dimples look like they were made with *%%(*'s dies rather than ours, give us a call.

The following photo will show the difference between right and wrong. Notice the straight line reflection from the fluorescent fixture. On the dies that are correct the line continues to be straight across the dimples, where in the wrong example it is bent (because the skin is bent) around the dimpled area.

baddies.jpg


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Last edited:
Surprise die in the mail

mculver said:
I received a surprise tank dimple die in the mail yesterday from Cleaveland. Seems that they were not satisfied with the quality of one that I ordered a few months ago, so they shipped me a new one.

I've yet to use the original die, so I was unaware that there was even the potential for an issue.

That's about as good as customer service can get! And definitely makes paying just a bit more worthwhile!

BTW, the note in the shipment said that this was a very small batch of dies, so not many people got a new one (fewer than 3 dozen).
Click to expand...

I also recieved a replacement die in the mail. I wasn't so lucky in that I had already started my tank with the original die. I tried everything to get those dimples to be right but to no avail. I contacted Mike at Cleveland and he completely rectified the problem. The new die worked perfectly. Great product
Great customer service. I bought also the standard 3/32 spring back die. They make a huge difference in the finished quality of the riveted skin! Buy them before you do another dimple!
 
Just a followup note. If you have dimpled with the wrong dies (either 1 of the 30, or someone elses :D) and have not yet riveted, you can re-dimple with good dies and mostly fix the mistakes.
 
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