Wire EDM is one of those processes that still impresses people who haven’t seen it before — cutting through hardened D2 tool steel at 62 HRC like it’s butter, leaving behind a finish that barely needs any cleanup. We recently completed a set of five progressive stamping punches and matching die sections for a customer in the appliance parts business.
The profiles had small radii (down to 0.015″) and tight positional tolerances between punch and die — clearance was 0.003″ per side, so there wasn’t much room for error. We ran the job on our Fanuc Robocut with 0.010″ brass wire. Four skim cuts after the rough gave us the surface finish and geometry they needed.
Total cut time across all ten pieces (five punches, five dies) was about 38 hours of unattended machining. That’s one of the real advantages of wire EDM — once it’s set up and running, you can walk away. All profiles checked out on the optical comparator, and the customer ran first hits within tolerance on the very first setup. Good project all around.