RSK Sales provides sales, service, and parts for eyelet and grommet machines, die cutting machines, skiving machines, splitting machines, and leatherworking machines and specializes in the following brands: USM, Atom, Schwabe, Sysco die cutting, Jopevi, Stimpson, Fortuna and Edward Segal.
Eyelet & Grommet Machines
We provide Jopevi, Stimpson, and United semi and fully automatic eyelet and grommet machines for cutting holes into material as well as setting the eyelet and washer. Machines are set for all applications and sizes.
A grommet is a ring or edge strip inserted into a hole through thin material, typically a sheet of textile fabric, sheet metal and or composite of carbon fiber, wood or honeycomb. Grommets are generally flared or collared on each side to keep them in place, and are often made of metal, plastic, or rubber. They may be used to prevent tearing or abrasion of the pierced material or protection from abrasion of the insulation on the wire, cable, line being routed through the penetration, and to cover sharp edges of the piercing, or all of the above.
A small grommet may also be called an eyelet, used for example on shoes, tarps and sails for lacing purposes. In electrical applications these are referred to as “insulating bushings”. Most common are molded rubber that are inserted into small hole diameters up to 2″ in diameter. There are many hole configurations from standard round to assorted U-shapes. Larger penetrations that are irregular in shape as well as long straight edges often use extruded or stamped strips of continuous length. These Continuous length materials are referred to as “grommet edging”.
These are quite common in applications that range from telecom switches and data center cabinets to complex and dense wire/cable and even hydraulic tubing in aircraft, transportation vehicles and medical equipment.
Die Cutting Machines
We provide Atom & USM die cutting machines with hydraulic swing arm clickers, traveling head, and beam presses for any application. They are perfect machines for die cutting leather, plastic, vinyl, rubber, cork, and other materials.
Die cutting is the process of using a die to shear webs of low-strength materials, such as rubber, fiber, foil, cloth, paper, corrugated fiberboard, paperboard, plastics, pressure-sensitive adhesive tapes, foam and sheet metal. In the metalworking and leather industries, the process is known as clicking and the machine may be referred to as a clicking machine. When a dinking die or dinking machine is used, the process is known as dinking. Commonly produced items using this process include gaskets, labels, corrugated boxes, and envelopes.
Die cutting started as a process of cutting leather for the shoe industry in the mid-19th century. It is now sophisticated enough to cut through just one layer of a laminate, so it is now used on labels, stamps, and other stickers; this type of die cutting is known as kiss cutting.
Die cutting can be done on either flatbed or rotary presses. Rotary die cutting is often done inline with printing. The primary difference between rotary die cutting and flatbed die cutting is that the flatbed is not as fast but the tools are cheaper. This process lends itself to smaller production runs where it is not as easy to absorb the added cost of a rotary die.
Skiving Machines
We provide Fortuna and Taking precision skiving machines for taking up to 2″ off the edge of leather or rubber. Machines are set for all applications and sizes.
Skiving or scarfing machines cut material off in slices, usually metal, but also leather or laminates. The process is used instead of rolling the material to shape when the material must not be work hardened, or must not shed minute slivers of metal later which is common in cold rolling processes.
The skiving process, meaning “to slice”, can be applied to a variety of applications and materials. In leather, skiving knives trim the thickness of the leather, often around the edges, to thin the material and make it easier to work with. In metal working, skiving can be used to remove a thin dimension of material or to create thin slices in an existing material, such as heat sinks where a large amount of surface area is required relative to the volume of the piece of metal.
The process involves moving the strip past precision-profiled slotted tools made to an exact shape, or past plain cutting tools. The tools are all usually made of tungsten carbide-based compounds. In early machines, it was necessary to precisely position the strip relative to the cutting tools, but newer machines use a floating suspension technology which enables tools to locate by material contact. This allows mutual initial positioning differences up to approximately 12 mm (0.47 in) followed by resilient automatic engagement. Products using this technology directly are automotive seatbelt springs, large power transformer winding strip, rotogravure plates, cable and hose clamps, gas tank straps, and window counterbalance springs. Products using the process indirectly are tubes and pipe mills where the edge of the strip is accurately beveled prior to being folded into tubular form and seam welded. The finished edges enable pinhole free welds.
For lines which use low speed welding processes, such as laser welding, the skiving tools cannot normally cut – for example at speeds below metal planing speeds or about 10 meters/minute (33 feet/minute). In these cases the tools can be vibrated at high frequency to artificially increase the relative speed between the tools and strip.
Another metal skiving application is for hydraulic cylinders, where a round and smooth cylinder inside is required for proper actuation. Several skiving knives on a round tool pass through a bore to create a perfectly round hole. Often, a second operation of roller burnishing follows to cold-work the surface for mirror-finish. This process is common among manufacturers of hydraulic and pneumatic cylinders.
Skiving can be applied to gear cutting, where internal gears are skived with a rotary cutter (rather than shaped or broached) in a process analogous to the hobbing of external gears.
Splitting Machines
we provide Fortuna bandknife precision splitting machines for thinning down or making your leather and rubber material more consistent. Machines are set for all applications and sizes.
A band knife or bandknife is a power tool used for cutting cloth and similar soft sheet materials. Very similar in operation to a band saw, it has an endless loop blade and the material to be cut is supported by a flat table. Band Knife blades also have applications for cutting/slitting or converting foam. Band knife blades are also used for splitting leather, paper, EVA/rubber and carpets.
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