2023 Plate Progress

[Jerry Christiansen]

Hi everyone,

As most of you know, not all the plates are made during the show. We need plates ready to sell the first day of the show. We are getting ready to make the 2023 plates.

Ron's Machine has made the dies the last several years and made this year's die. I didn't take pictures of the die, but I can show you the progress.



The first strip of plates. The first image is on the bottom, the final of the strip is on the top. Let's zoom in on the bottom two impressions.



Notice the center image is very good, but the printing on the outside is missing on the bottom one. We did some changes on the punch and made the second impression. The center image is still good and the printing on the outside is starting to come in.



The bottom impression in the picture above is the middle impression on the first picture. A little more work was done on the punch between impressions. You can see the letters around the out side are getting better. A bit more work on the punch and the top impression in the picture above was made. That is a good impression and will make a good plate.

At this point the dies were taken out so they could be sent off for heat treating (hardening). When the dies came back, the top image in the first picture was made.

Here is a picture of a finished plate for 2023



Currently two plates exist. Yes, you will be able to see them at the Annual Meeting.
NO, THEY ARE NOT FOR SALE at this time.

Later,
Jerry Christiansen

 

[Jerry Christiansen]

The nest step for making plates was completed this morning.
Five Rollagians, Merle Myers, Don Krueger, Gerry Parker, Clint Adams and me, showed up at Fargo Trailer Center this morning.
The 4 foot X 10 foot sheets were sheared into 4 foot X 8.75 inch strips.


Merle and Richard from Fargo Trailer Center are making the last cut on a sheet. Gerry is ready to help load the next sheet.




Merle and Richard come back for the next sheet.


Don is behind the shear waiting for a strip to get cut.


Don handed the cut strip to Clint and the strip get neatly stacked on a pallet.


Except for the couple minutes that I was taking pictures, I was on the opposite side of the pallet that Clint is on.
For most of the operation, Clint took the strips from Don, handed them to me and I placed them on the pallet.

We are now ready to call the crew together to make the plates.

Later,
Jerry Christiansen

 

[karl stange]

Jerry,
Thank you for the updates.
Please Thank everyone helping on the Plates. Another behind the scenes job WMSTR volunteers do, which goes unnoticed by many.
Take care

 

[Jerry Christiansen]

Another step in plate progress.

A group met at Peter Kieffer's shop Saturday, 22 April to make the 2023 plates. Some of us got there at 8 to drink some coffee, we started the presses at 9am.


Clint A was tucked in around the corner behind the forming press. He took the strips out of the basket and fed them into the forming die.



Don K and his son Zach were out front of the forming die. Don ran the die and Zach took the strips with the impressions made around the corner to the trim die.


If you look carefully you can see Clint back behind the die. Don is handing a strip to Zach. Merle M is in the foreground keeping an eye on things. Merle ran the forming press later on when Don and Zach had to leave. Cody W is sitting in front of the belt sander waiting for a trimmed plate so he can sand the burr off. Cassidy is our first step of quality control.



Don is still running the forming die. Dan K is on the far right running the trim die. Austin W is behind the trim die taking the trimmed plates out and getting them to Cody for sanding.


A different shot of Austin and Cody playing Frisbee.




A bit later, Brekke ran the forming die for a while.



The packaging crew. Brekke and Amanda K and Marcie W. Each plate was put in a plastic bag along with a paper insert and the bag was stapled shut. Then the bagged plates were put into boxes for transport to Rollag.

I never got Jim W in a picture. Jim carried strips from the forming die to the trim die and then carried the finished plates from Cassidy's work station to the packaging crew





Amanda with a big smile taping the next to last box shut. One more box of plates and then we cleaned up the shop and went for a short debriefing meeting.

Later,
Jerry Christiansen

 

[m kerkvliet]

Thanks all for the hard work! Love seeing this behind the scenes stuff that really never gets noticed by the average member!