Machining a Tool for Making Silver Wire / Drawplate

This video showcases my journey in making a drawplate. I needed a drawplate for creating silver wire, as I plan to incorporate a silver inlay into the brass guards for one of my upcoming knife-making videos. Unfortunately, I only had silver dust on hand and needed to transform it into wire, which led to the idea for this project. The drawplate is crafted from an old spring. This project encompasses various steps, including silver casting, silver purification using the sugar lye method, silver mold making, and, of course, silver wire drawing.
I was genuinely surprised by the final tool; it works perfectly, and the 33 holes allow for wire production ranging from 4.0 to 0.8 mm in diameter with 0.1 mm increments. To test the plate, I created a 1.2 mm wire from a roughly hammered 3.9 mm diameter wire. The entire process took approximately 20 minutes, and the wire stretched from 19 cm to 166 cm.
#handmade #craftingjourney #drawplate

[@AllMyGabens]

Maybe I'm an idiot but seeing that wire get drawn was a fat nut. Super satisfying to watch.

[@JustAnotherCraftsman]

Not gonna lie you, the POV is even better and somehow addictive :D

[@homemadetools]

Nice work; this is a rare tool build. We shared this video on our homemade tools forum this week 😎

[@JustAnotherCraftsman]

Thank you so much! 🙂

[@lastcent5140]

may the algorithm bless this video

[@The_Gun_Room]

Only this any views? This video is awesome, and needs some more love!

[@JustAnotherCraftsman]

Thank you :)

[@carrestore]

nice job

[@JustAnotherCraftsman]

Thank you for the feedback 🙂

[@rigoniironworks]

Good stuff!

[@JustAnotherCraftsman]

Thank you, I really appreciate your feedback 🙂

[@brysonburns]

1:37 did anyone else think a spider was on their screen?

[@JustAnotherCraftsman]

not gonna lie you, i thought i'm tripping during video edit 😆

[@masonmp1889]

nice job now you need to make a drawing bench so you can easily draw out the heavy gauges

[@JustAnotherCraftsman]

Thank you! Good idea

[@mikea5726]

I've been looking up a lot of machining stuff, I'm not involved in it, just interests me. The main thing I'm wondering is how do you keep everything centered in the holes? Do you use the bit you used to make all the holes on the plate to line each hole back up for the inner hole to be drilled? Anyway that's my guess, unless I'm underestimating the accuracy of these milling machines and after using that wobbly bit (think it's called an edge finder), which I'm guessing in this case was to square the plate to the machine? the machinist would work backwards from the main holes drilling the center hole of the last main hole and then finding each adjacent hole's center by using the markings and a calculated amount of turns of the wheel of the cross slide (which I guess would be determined by the hole spacing). That seems overly complicated though when there's the first way, though I don't know if that's how it's done hence the original ? coming to mind.

[@JustAnotherCraftsman]

Hello Mikea, I always use a center drill to initiate a hole. To ensure geometrical accuracy all my machines are equipped with a DRO (digital readout), enabling precise positioning on any coordinates. Here's the approach: first, locate the corner's coordinates using an edge finder (surprisingly accurate, with a precision of approximately +-0.01 mm). Zero the x and y axes for that corner. In the case of the drawing plate, I utilized the pattern function, which takes the number of holes and the distance between them as input. Once configured, you can switch between hole numbers, and it provides the new coordinates to reach. It's a simple and efficient method :)

[@mikea5726]

@@JustAnotherCraftsman Thanks for the reply and sorry if my ?'s don't make sense as I don't have machines yet and I'm trying to work this out in my head. I can see the finding the corner's coordinates using the edge finder in the video, do you only need that one corner and the pattern function calculates the coordinates of a basically infinite grid from that point? (I ask because my mind is having trouble understanding how it would know to move down a row if it doesn't have an end point). Next ?, Is that the center drill at 11:42? because you're about to drill the first holes but the edge finder doesn't come in until later when you drill to size. (Was the edge finding and pattern function done for this part too just not shown?) Another ?, at 12:11 after drilling all the first holes when you flip the plate it looks like it's also drilled slightly on the other side, if that's the case and the DRO is involved at this point in the process, are you basically flipping the plate and going through the same edge finding and the pattern function process and everything lines up correctly on the flip side? is the flipped side where you drilling the holes to size through not the deeper hole side?

[@_aullik]

does it make sense to do the last draw step twice? I guess if there is some springiness in the material there can still be some elastic deformation

[@JustAnotherCraftsman]

You're correct, it doesn't... but if you watch closely, I did draw through 1.3 mm hole and ended up with 1.2 mm. No double drawing happened. Nevertheless, thank you for the feedback 🙂.

[@_aullik]

@@JustAnotherCraftsman I'm not a craftsman, im just a rando on the internet asking questions based on what i think logical and what i have seen on other channels. Thank you for the answer.

[@JustAnotherCraftsman]

@_aullik I'm glad you pointed that out. It means you watched the video carefully ;). I am not an excellent craftsman, I make mistakes. That's why I reviewed the video and posted a comment. I wasn't quite sure how it was :)