Artesania Latina Cooper Plate Embossing Tools

[Kurt Konrath]

OK, I recently received my AL embossing tool, I ordered both sizes they sell, and when it arrived, no instructions on how to assemble, so based on website photos and hunches, I was able to get a usable tool assembled.

Below are photos of assembly and tools needed are sanding sticks, small file to clean up metal edges and both PVA type glue for wood and some CA for metal parts.

Both kits are same process just different pattern size.

Photos show packaging and parts as they come, and then some assembly photos.



Next set shows gluing and clamps assembly of handle of tool.



Then the fun starts with the embossing head! after cutting all metal parts and two of three small wood spaces out, clean up edges of metal pieces to ensure no fouling of pattern by retention tabs.

I assembled on the screw but a small toothpick or dowel could be used, start with disk, which are marked with letters, A, B, C, D, E & F, use A, then metal spacer, B then spacer until you have all six disks stacked. Next step required you to align slots in disks and then install the end marker piece which goes across all disks and hangs over outside of assembly.

I added a small drop of CA to outside ends of the cross pieces to keep them in place.

Use one of small wooden spacers on each side of head when placing in handle and place screw, washers and nut to finish assembly. Tighten to all smooth rolling, and add CA to nut, to keep it from falling off (don't ask how I know).

This should finish the assembly.

 

[Kurt Konrath]

I rolled this out on test paper and it seemed to leave a believable pattern and cross pieces made end of panel marks on strip to look like single strips on a long row of copper tape.

I have not tried on actual tape, but I am thinking I need to make a narrow long U shaped box to keep tool straight in line on strip as they are pulled and rolled together.

 

[AllanKP69]

Is the spacing between each wheel adjustable and are there wheels with additional spacing between punch pins? The plates were 15" X 48" and nails spaced a couple inches apart on the periphery but with our various scales that is a lot of change parts to be able to make correctly sized plates and properly spaced simulated nail indentations. A challenge to be sure.
Allan

 

[Kurt Konrath]

I am guessing the spacing can be adjusted with more spacers, but the end cutters would have to be modified to allow for wider head.

The wood rings on outside of head, keep head centered in handle and allow room for end cutter pieces to clear handle ends.

If you good enough with metal work, you could copy the design and make spacing of nail heads to suit your specific design and scale.

 

[Bob Cleek]

TEMU sells ponce wheel sets in different scales and spacing patterns with nicely done metal handles. I expect they were primarily intended for model railroad brass work. I haven't used them as yet, but I was pleased with the quality. TEMU is a fun place to shop for modeling tools. Their prices are so low that you can afford to take a chance on an impulse purchase now and then. These are eleven bucks and change.

See: https://www.temu.com/model-rivet-ma...32186820869_sdfyxc83x7&_x_sessn_id=frzkiwy7lb

 

[AllanKP69]

Team Up Price Down is certainly growing in leaps and bounds Bob. I really need to give it a try soon.
Allan

 

[Bob Cleek]

Team Up Price Down is certainly growing in leaps and bounds Bob. I really need to give it a try soon.
Allan

Yes, it certainly seems to be. I was quite skeptical about it at first, but I've tried a couple of orders under $100 and everything came fine. I did notice that you have to be really careful to study what it is you're ordering and to search TEMU for the same item to make sure you're ordering the lowest priced item because the same item is often listed at varying prices in different places on the site. TEMU's search engine and sometimes the names they use for some products are less than "user friendly." It's best to just scroll a lot to see what's there. Another caveat is that the size of the products is sometimes smaller than the posted photos would appear. (It's the old TV Dinner trick with the picture of the meal on the front of the box being placed on a smaller than usual dinner plate.)

Going over their online catalog is something of an exercise in separating the fly specks from the pepper, and there's a lot of counterfeit Chinese products offered, some being almost identical to the real thing, but their prices are so low that if you get disappointed by your order (which you can return if unsatisfied,) you aren't going to get burned too badly.

 

[Uwek]

I am looking forward to see some results .....

 

[Bob Cleek]

I am looking forward to see some results .....

If anybody is contemplating buying any Chinese products, especially if they are spending any serious money, they'd do well to do so in time for their order to clear US customs before the promised 60% (or 10%, depending on which day of the week, or so it seems) tariff is imposed. I fear it will be quite an adjustment. Just imagine what a 60% increase in the cost of something like a Sieg lathe and tooling would do to the "7X mini-lathe" community! Even things "Made in the USA" nearly always contain some elements imported from China these days, such as threaded fasteners, bearings, and so on. The price of cheap tooling could go through the roof and the good stuff will probably increase in price accordingly as well. If nothing else, now would be a good time to upgrade your smartphone if there's any sort of deal available on a trade-in!

 

[lauckstreet]

I’d like to comment on this tool. I’m currently building the new Artesania Latina HMS Victory kit and thought this would be a great tool to improve the look of the copper plating. I started searching for the tool and found lots of websites in Europe that sold it but none of them would ship to the US. Finally I found a website in the US that sold it. That site is https://www.radiorccars.com/product/artesania-micro-riveting-tool-6mm-27319/ . I ordered the product and when I checked out, they charged me $25.00 in shipping. That seemed odd because this tool couldn’t weight but a few ounces. I ship my products in a bubble envelope and even if the weight is over 3 ounces, it never costs more than $5.00 so ship first class in the US.

I began getting suspicious of this website when I received a PayPal receipt for my order. There was no order number and the receipt said the receiving person was Hailey Hansard. I started doing some research. First I did a google search for the name “Hailey Hansard.” The search result shocked me. She is an actress and photos of her turn up everywhere. Why would a movie star own a hobby website?

The website gave an address in Omaha, Nebraska so I searched for that address using google maps. There was no such address in Omaha, Nebraska. Then I did a whois.com search for the website name, radiorccars.com. That result said that domain name was owned by Spaceship Inc with a telephone number of 985-401-4545. The website validnumber.com reported that a number of complaints have been filed that this number is being used by scammer. Other websites are reporting similar findings.

Bottom line is, I’ve been scammed. This radiorccars.com is a fraudulent website. Do not purchase this tool or anything else from this website.

Bob Hunt

 

[AllanKP69]

Thanks for the tip Bob. I hate to say it but I have a LOT of mistrust of things that come in on my phone and computer these days. Lots of BS going around. I just got texts today that sounded really odd. I checked with the supposed company to be sure it was not a scam and they said it was an AI generated message and was actually legit. They also acknowledged that I was not the first to call and maybe not the best way of communicating with their customers. It will probably get a lot worse if the US Postal Service goes insolvent next year as speculated by PG David Steiner if they do not do something to reign in the costs and waste.
Allan

 

[Bob Cleek]

Thanks for the tip Bob.

Since I last posted on the subject, I've done more research on TEMU and ordered perhaps three hundred bucks worth of tools from TEMU, most for less than $20. I have had very good luck with my purchases from them. I mistakenly ordered four items when I only wanted one and their return for credit back to my PayPal account was seamless and instantaneous. In one other instance, the item sent was not the item ordered. They have you take a picture of what you received, and they email you a QR code. They immediately credit the price back to your PayPal (etc.) account. You then bring the item to a UPS or FedEx store where they scan the QR code and take the item. The shippers return it to TEMU at no charge to you. In another instance, they sent me the wrong sized item, a wire twisting tool which came in small and large sizes. I received the small when I wanted the large. When I notified TEMU of the problem through their returns page, and sent them the photo and return request, they emailed me back telling me to just keep the small one and then sent the correct larger size one to me! (I presume the profit margin on the item was less than TEMU's shipping and restocking cost, so they just wrote it off!)


What I've learned about TEMU:

1. Their product descriptions are very difficult to understand in many instances. You must carefully read everything in the item description to make sure you are getting what you think you are. Don't rely on the pictures alone. Be very careful about sizes. Most descriptions are apparently prepared by Chinese guys who don't speak English too well. They get metric and imperial measurements mixed up a lot of the time. They also seem to have a crew of six-year-old kids that they use as hand models, so an item that's actually four inches long looks like eight inches long in the advertising photograph! A careful reading of the written specs usually clarifies any ambiguities and if it doesn't, I just reject it entirely.

2. The same product may well be sold elsewhere on the TEMU catalog site for a significantly lower price. TEMU acts as a shipping expediter for any manufacturer who wants to sell damn near anything. You are buying directly from the manufacturer in most instances. TEMU provides manufacturers in China (and a few elsewhere) with the advertising platform and shipping of the product between the manufacturer and the buyer. Manufacturing in China is often done by multiple manufacturers. I'm not sure why, but the Patriotic People's Sum Ting Wong Machine Tool Collet Manufacturing Collective in one place manufactures the exact same collets manufactured by Patriotic People's Ho Li Fook Machine Tool Collet Manufacturing Collective someplace else and on TEMU the same collets may be selling for radically different prices! Thus, if Ho Li Fook is overstocked on the collect set you are looking for, you may have a chance to buy them for half or a third of the price you may have first seen them in the TEMU online catalog in Sum Ting Wong's item listing. The solution is to always cut and past TEMU's descriptive title for the item into its search engine and pull up all the listings for that item and pick the least expensive one. Care should be taken at that point to compare prices, because many items are shipped at no cost while others incur a shipping charge of about $3.00 USD. (TEMU sells items at below the $800 customs exemption level and ships them at individual mail rates, although you may get them delivered by UPS, FedEx, USPS, or Amazon, depending upon where TEMU gets the best rate at the moment.) Also, items which come from "U.S. Warehouses" rather than China will usually get to you a lot faster.)

3. You get what you pay for. At the often-incredible prices TEMU charges, it must be expected that a lot of what they are selling is not top quality. It's up to you to be the judge of what you are buying. My interest has been in machine tooling and hand tools. In much the same way as with Harbor Freight, I doubt I'd ever buy anything electrically operated from TEMU. I don't expect their edged tools to be the equivalent of top-of-the-line stuff. The tolerances on their tooling aren't competitive with Starrett, certainly, but their prices more than compensate for that. Accuracy is well within modeling tolerances and that makes paying $12.00 USD for a set of collets that would cost you $360.00 USD from one of the top domestic manufacturers very worthwhile. TEMU is selling the now ubiquitous CNC-machined aluminum tools for as little as a tenth of what MicroMark or ModelExpo is selling the same item (likely from the same factory.) TEMU's stock doesn't appear to be "seconds" or "knock-offs", either.

4. Sometimes you will find modeling related items in the strangest places in the TEMU catalog. Looking at search subjects other than "ship modeling" will turn up a lot of useful items. Check subjects like "bead work," "fly tying," "nail art," and so on to find useful things. Specific searches such as "micro drill bits," and such work well also. If you limit your purchases to low-cost stuff, which is to say most of what's on TEMU," you aren't risking much if the product is a disappointment, although I can't say I've experienced that much at all. If you carefully check the listing, you generally don't get any unpleasant surprises.

5. You have to turn a blind eye to a lot of currently popular social concerns if such matter much to you. TEMU is an international corporation operating out of the PRC and appears to be in compliance with all international trade laws which apply to its activities. However, according to TEMU, all they are doing is expediting direct sales and shipping. TEMU does not accept responsibility for the actions of the manufacturers who do business through its platform. Thus, according to some "watchdogs," it is reportedly possible that your new four-dollar CNC-built aluminum table saw miter gauge may have been packed for shipping by a ten-year-old Uyghur girl chained to a workbench or that your new set of collets "May contain substances known by the State of California to cause cancer or birth defects." Of course, paying a domestic retailer five or ten times the price for the identical product from the same factory is no guarantee of any difference in these respects, either.

6. Shipping generally takes seven to twelve days to the U.S. West Coast, and I expect everywhere else. The product listing will indicate the delivery time. You get a partial refund on most products if it arrives later than promised. Stuff shipped from U.S. warehouses is delivered sooner, of course, than stuff from China. In terms of delivery times, though, Amazon it's not.

7. "Beware" of TEMU's advertisements. They often prove the maxim, "If it looks too good to be true, it probably isn't." Although, in TEMU's case, it usually is true, but it's just that there's a catch. For example, they currently have this "wheel of fortune" spinning advertisement where you click on the box and the wheel stops on a prize selection (ostensible) by chance. In reality, you will always with the top prize which will be a $100 USD credit on your first TEMU purchases or something. It's true, but you've got to buy $1,000 worth of products in your first order or some crazy catch like that. (Frankly, I didn't waste time finding out exactly what the "rules of the game" were as soon as I realized there were strings attached.) TEMU has been advertising a very nice looking $4.00 CNC-machined precision miter gauge for table saws on social media sites recently. I checked that out and found a similar catch which had to do with your checking into TEMU every day for a period of time or something in order to get the discount. The lowest regular price of this precision miter gauge on TEMU is $38.00 USD, which is actually a very good deal. (https://www.temu.com/search_result.html?search_key=miter gauge&search_method=user&refer_page_el_sn=200010&srch_enter_source=top_search_entrance_10005&refer_page_name=bgn_verification&refer_page_id=10017_1776200209868_43dlemb0q3&refer_page_sn=10017&_x_vst_scene=adg&_x_ads_sub_channel=search&_x_ads_account=176148513&_x_ads_channel=bing&_x_ads_set=518429138&_x_ads_id=1323813638137242&_x_ads_creative_id=82738614636630&_x_ns_source=o&_x_ns_msclkid=a153bebc187013d13a05d762b197dca0&_x_ns_match_type=p&_x_ns_bid_match_type=bp&_x_ns_query=temu miter gauge sale]&_x_ns_keyword=Temu&_x_ns_device=c&_x_ns_targetid=kwd-82739251713589:loc-190&_x_ns_extensionid=&_x_ns_product_id=&_x_sessn_id=dvoon2x1w4) Another online retailer is selling the same precision miter guage for $121.00 USD! (https://www.lightinthebox.com/p/table-saw-miter-gauge-for-table-saws-band-saws-and-router-tables-red_p17246683.html?currency=USD&sku=276_816112&country_code=us&currency=USD&country_code=us&litb_from=connexity&utm_source=connexity&utm_campaign=connexity_us&clickid=572bb24389cd1066ffb0db9d202a1a01&cnxclid=572bb24389cd1066ffb0db9d202a1a01&msclkid=572bb24389cd1066ffb0db9d202a1a01&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term=4584757338216411&utm_content=PRB - LightIntheBox.com (370007) )

IN SUMMARY: If you see a tool that looks handy to have for modeling, or anything else for that matter, and you know it's made in China (or even suspect it, in which case it's a pretty safe bet you're right, check TEMU and see if you can find it for sale there. You'll almost certainly pay considerably less for it. Most of the prices on TEMU are so low, the products are more than worth taking a chance on.

 

[Rob444]

"that your new set of collets "May contain substances known by the State of California to cause cancer or birth defects." "

One of the reasons I am glad I do not live in California is because so many thing there cause cancer or birth defects!