Steel Rule Die Cutting

Steel rule die cutting is a crush cut technology in which the material to be cut is placed against a 'cookie cutter' like tool and the two are pressed with several tons of force between two parallel plates until the material is cut.

There is also a rotary drum version of the steel rule die, bet we do not currently offer those services. Rotary steel rule is often used to cut large parts where accuracy is not required such as boxes or garments.

Steel rule dies are generally made with a piece of Birch plywood in which slots are cut with a saw or a laser. Steel blades, called rule in the industry, are cut, bent, and inserted into the board.

The biggest difference between steel rule blades are the angle of the blades: inside, center or outside bevel, and how the board is cut.  While die makers can achieve   remarkable accuracy, generally the tolerance on a die made with a saw is +/-.015 and with a laser cut die +/-.010

There are also solid steel dies flat dies that can be used in the same way. These are much more expensive, but can achieve accuracies of +/-0.002 inches.

Advantages of Steel rule die cutting:

• The cost of the tooling is one of the lowest in all the die technologies. The exception are etched zinc dies used for thermal cutting.
• It takes only 3 to5 days to have the dies made.
• There is very little set-up needed to cut a few test pieces, making this an ideal way of making prototypes.

The blades can be changed easily: replaced, removed, added.

The disadvantage are:

• The lack of accuracy and fine detail. 
• Steel rule dies also tend to have a shorter life than rotary dies.  The exact die life is difficult to predict without testing since there are so many factors to consider including acceptable quality, abrisivity and toughness of the material to be cut, accuracy of the press, type of backing material etc.
• Though it is possible to kiss cut parts, it is more difficult and less accurate than with rotary die cutting.

We tend to use steel rule for prototyping, small quantities (up to a few thousand), very thick parts and large parts or for high volumes of large parts up to 24" by 24".