Janne Turja from Makela in Finland has answered my first 3 questions about the perfect extrusion die.

Thank you Janne for being the first Extruder to help me with this project, great feedback.

Question 1: When do you consider an extrusion die to be successful?

Answer: First of course number of trials and if there is problem in the trial, how serious problem it is.

These two indicators will also give us an idea of what to expect from the die and how it could work in the production.

Then comes tons extruded considering profile wall thickness / weight.

If I ask this same question to our designers, they will answer that delivery is the most important because customer needs samples as soon as possible ( I can put this also to number 1)

Question 2. What is the most important factor or factors in the process of manufacturing a successful die

Answer: I think first is design, aluminum flowing in the die is everything.

The CNC used to machine the dies are also very important: for example, bearing flatness is very important

We sometimes receive dies where there is relief angle in the bearing and that does cause problem in production even if design is good.

Steel and heat treatment quality are also very important and these could as well be part of question number 1 relating to tons extruded. Nitriding is very important when considering tons extruded.

Question 3. When a die fails in production, what would you consider to be the most common cause?

Answer: Poor design, bad manufacturing, different parameters being used by different press operators or other production mistakes.

Communications with suppliers is very important as well as communication between the extrusion company itself. The synergy between design team, press and die shop operators is very important, even before communications with supplier.

About Janne Turja

I have been worked with aluminum since 1997, first started packing department,
2001 started work with the dies,as die corrector (trainer Gareth Evans)
2010 die shop supervisor.
2011-2014 5S, Lean, Continuous improvement, Extrusion dies lead time

Find out more on his linked in profile: https://www.linkedin.com/pub/janne-turja/61/4a2/98

www.makela.com

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