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DRDT Laser Sight

KCBerner

Well Known Member
I had a small Christmas break project that may be worth reporting.

It has always driven me a bit crazy using the DRDT-2 on large pieces. I had a tendency to fish around trying to get the die to mate with the rivet hole, putting small scratches on the piece. So I decided to make a laser sight.

I think there are various ways to accomplish this task, this is what I did:

Step 1: Acquire Laser. In this case, a Drill Press laser sight from Amazon for $40.
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Step 2: Epoxy rare earth magnets to the case of the laser. I used rare earth because they?re thinner. This thing already sticks down into the neck space of the DRDT enough.
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Step 3: Attach the laser to the DRDT and adjust. The laser is fully adjustable but I think the easiest thing to do is get it roughly adjusted then just move it around slightly until the X hits the dimple die.
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As I said above, it does stick down into the open neck of the DRDT a little, maybe an inch or so. It may not be usable for anything other than large flat pieces but if I want to remove it, I?ll just take it off and the magnets will stick it to the top of the DRDT where I store some Dies, etc.

After I ordered the laser sight, I saw something online that gave me another idea for a solution that may be better. You could just use a regular office laser pointer with a magnetic helping hand (the kind they use in electronics and stuff to help solder). The only trick there would be devising something to keep the button pushed but I?m sure something could be worked out. That would have the advantage of not sticking down into the free space. And since the die doesn?t move up or down, a single laser dot would do the job just fine.
 
Nice Idea

I thought about the same thing on my Avery unit. I set the unit slightly low and allowed the sheet to float just above the sets. That way it was not scratched.

The width of the unit seems adequate to mount on top, does that not work?
 
I thought about the same thing on my Avery unit. I set the unit slightly low and allowed the sheet to float just above the sets. That way it was not scratched.

The width of the unit seems adequate to mount on top, does that not work?

That's a good question. I suspect that the laser lines wouldn't have line of sight to the die but I'll try when I go to the shop tomorrow.
 
The width of the unit seems adequate to mount on top, does that not work?

I tried this today and there is not line of sight around the DRDT frame for the laser to see the die.

That being said, I dimpled aft fuselage skins today and I thought that the laser was useful. Certainly for the holes in the middle of the skin.
 
I just put the male die in the ram and put the part in right side up. The part slides over the female die in the anvil without scratching (even if it does, it's on the inside), and it's easy to hold the ram close to the part to see exactly where it has to go.
 
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