TECH - How To Put Your Nuts in a Cage.

Thought that would get your attention; here is my tech post on making forming dies to bend cage nuts.
I replaced the rear inner fenders on my 41 Willys Coupe and needed to replace the factory cage nuts that are used to bolt on the outer rear fenders, a Willys Coupe uses 10 of them. I could not find anyone that sold them, so my only choice was to make them. I had one rusted cage nut with stripped threads that I was able to use as a pattern. To start I needed to make a drawing of the profile of the cage that wraps around the nut. To do this, I unwrapped the cage from the nut to get accurate measurements.


The thickness of the factory cage nut measured around .043, so I sheared some blanks out of 18 gage sheet metal and then used a hand punch to put a 13/32 hole in the center of the blank.
<O</O

 

I made a simple fixture out of a piece of cold rolled steel, it has a locating pilot on the top surface that fits the hole that I punched in the blank. I will use this to hold the blank while I cnc mill the profile.

This is a picture of the blank bolted to the fixture before the profile is milled.

Here is the cage after the profile is cut.

 

I made the width of the fixture the same as the nut because I planned on using it to bend the cage, but the more I studied the bends on the sample the more I realized that when I was finished making my parts they would resemble snowflakes. None of the nuts would be the same and I wanted them to have nice even bends and look like they did when they were produced at the factory.
I decided that I would make a set of forming dies to bend the cage around the nut. I had a book on die making that a friend had given me a while back. I read the chapter on forming dies and came up with a design that would not require a die set to align the dies. (a die set holds and aligns the forming dies in the press) I did not want to invest the money to purchase a die set for the quantity of cage nuts that I was making. I planned on making the dies align with locating grooves milled into them. I would need three separate dies to form the bends.
Here is the base die I made. It also uses a pilot to locate the13/32 hole and a slot to hold the blank straight.


The second forming die sits on top of the base die and the outer edges of the second die slide into the notches on the base die to align them. When pressed together, the dies bend the two sides of the cage down at the same time. The spring and button hold the blank in place while the dies are pressed together and help the part from deforming because the bend is close to the 13/32 hole.

 

Very cool and great workmanship!

 

It did not take a lot of tonnage to do the forming. I used a 1-1/2 ton Dake model 0 arbor press to do the bending. After the side bends are formed, I flipped the cage around and put the nut in the cage and bolted it to the base die to get ready for the next bending operation.

The third die folds the cage around the top of the nut and crimps the side. It is aligned with the base die using the same notches that are on the side of the base and a notch on the bottom of the base. I fold one side, then flip the base die over and fold the second side. If you look closely at the third die you can also see the crimping bosses.


In this picture you can see the cage starting to fold over.

 

You can see the crimps on the side to prevent the nut from sliding out of the cage.

10 identical cage nuts; no snowflakes.

 

WOW!! Nice work. what about a tie that can punch out the blank instead of having to mill it.

 

You should sell those......

 

Man, you have some skills. Nice elegant piece of tool making. I can see the finished cage nut in more uses than the Willys application. Round out that forming tool with a punch and die to make the blank you may have an additional revenue stream.

 

Damnnnnn

 

Very nice

I'll take 50 please

 

Nice work,, very impressive.

 

Its the small details that knowone sees that matters the most.
Amazing work and a eye for detail.

 

Subscribed for future reference, good job.

 

Wow Man, Awesome skill!!

 

Sweet!

 

I woulda given you a handful of these, but they take rivets to mount them. Pretty bad when I can recite MIL hardware numbers off the top of my head.

http://www.diamondfasteners.com/ms21076-04-nutplate/nut-plates-ms-nas/

Very good bit of ingenuity and skills you shared with us, bravo!


Bob

 

Dang Bob, you're no fun. I didn't know these could be bought until you posted:

McMaster has them also,

For those of us without the tools or skills. Also called bridge or floating weld nuts

 

Jeff does an awesome job on the cage nuts. they are exact replicas of the willys ones. He does sell them. I bought 10 for my willys project. If you want the correct ones I would recommend contacting Jeff. Thanks again Jeff for your help.

 

Pretty darn cool!

 

cool

 

That's a lot of work to do something right. I would have just welded a nut to a flat piece of steel. lol

 

Good Job !

 

Fantastic job !,... Thanks for posting this,.........

 

very very nice craftsmanship.........

 

<TABLE style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px" id=RenderableTbl_634662741306406727YDAX class=ItmTbl><TBODY><TR><TD style="PADDING-LEFT: 7px; PADDING-RIGHT: 37px" class="ItmTblCellIndentPivotMin ItmTblCellSpec ItmTblColSpaceSpec ItmTblContentCell NoWrapCell HighlightAct ItmTblRow_Hover" data-mcm-prodgrps="1">1/4"-20</TD><TD style="PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 35px" class="ItmTblCellSpec ItmTblColSpaceRelSpec ItmTblContentCell ItmTblDigitAlign0 NoWrapCell HighlightAct ItmTblRow_Hover" data-mcm-prodgrps="1">1 3/4"</TD><TD style="PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 35px" class="ItmTblCellSpec ItmTblColSpaceRelSpec ItmTblContentCell ItmTblDigitAlignX0 NoWrapCell HighlightAct ItmTblRow_Hover" data-mcm-prodgrps="1">9/16"</TD><TD style="PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 35px" class="ItmTblCellSpec ItmTblColSpaceRelSpecEnd ItmTblContentCell ItmTblDigitAlignX0 NoWrapCell HighlightAct ItmTblRow_Hover" data-mcm-prodgrps="1">1/16"</TD><TD style="PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 37px" class="ItmTblCellSpec ItmTblColSpaceSpec ItmTblContentCell ItmTblDigitAlignX0 NoWrapCell HighlightAct ItmTblRow_Hover" data-mcm-prodgrps="1">11/32"</TD><TD style="PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 24px" class="ItmTblCellSpec ItmTblColSpaceSpecBefrPartNbr ItmTblContentCell ItmTblDigitAlign0 NoWrapCell HighlightAct ItmTblRow_Hover" data-mcm-prodgrps="1">10</TD><TD class="ItmTblCellPartNbr ItmTblColSpacePartNbr ItmTblContentCell NoWrapCell HighlightAct ItmTblRow_Hover" data-mcm-prodgrps="1">90955A126</TD><TD style="PADDING-LEFT: 9px; PADDING-RIGHT: 5px" class="ItmTblCellPrce ItmTblColSpacePrceAftrPartNbr ItmTblColSpacePrceTblEnd ItmTblContentCell NoWrapCell HighlightAct ItmTblRow_Hover" data-mcm-prodgrps="1">$10.39</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>

 

Chevs of the 40s sells them in a six pack. I had to replace all of the fender mounting nuts on my '40 sedan.

 

THANK YOU! It is always nice to see how things are made, seeing the tooling was very interesting. Bob

 

Your look a lot stronger and thicker than the McMaster-Carr ones... Easier to weld.

You tool and die makers... a different breed.

 

That is impressive! And i already figured out taht you likely have a drawer full of cage nuts from McMCarr. How much clearance/tolerance did you allow between the die and receiver to form the first bend (forming the nut sides)?
Thanks for posting, oj