Victory Tool Rides 3D Design Software to Victory

At stamping-die designer and builder Victory Tool, Anoka, MN, the move to SolidWorks and 3D QuickPress “has made the process of designing much smoother. It’s faster and more complete than what we’d get in a 2D world,” according to tool designer Dean Hoffman.

“Before we implemented 3DQuickPress (supplied by Strategic Technology Solutions, Buffalo Grove, IL),” Hoffman adds, “everything was hard to see. What you saw was not what you got.”

In 3DQuickPress, Hoffman finds that “you can move a component with an X-Y-Z move, or from one point to another. And, unlike some other 3D add-on die-design programs, 3DQuickPress provides more in terms of tools for designing a die.

“For example,” he continues, “the software has its own Production Ready Library (PRL) that we customized, creating libraries for each of our different die assemblies. The assemblies have bolts and dowels already in them, so with a few quick moves, they’re complete. The PRLs cut all the clearance in the die from top to bottom and have material type with hardness properties. I’ve finished a bill of materials for a die with 80 components in as little as 15 min.,” Hoffman states.