A few days later I get a call from someone at the factory. He had a hearty laugh at me and said that he'd cut open some of the bubbly buttons, and sure enough, they'd been pressed with TWO SHELLS. He continued laughing and offered to ship my totally functional machine back.
This is only the second machine I have ever seen go back to the manufacturer in the 6 years I've been working here. And this one wasn't a manufacturing issue at all, but a user error.
I figured I may as well do a post about the Double Bubble Troubleshooting in case any one else encounters this.
First, I set out to replicate the problem - an let me tell you - it wasn't easy. I tried overly thick paper, double shells, double mylar and the darn machine kept making decent buttons out of them! Finally after hours of trying to screw up a button on purpose it worked. Here's what could happen if you use two shells:
Also in my quest to screw up some buttons, I got the pick-up die stuck in the upper die. That was fun. I think I actually used 3 shells to accomplish this doozie:
(There isn't supposed to between the base plate and die table).
I got the dies unstuck by holding the die table down for about 30 seconds. Eventually the resistance just popped the upper die up. After that I removed the contents from the upper die manually.
If problems like this are happening to you, and you're 100% sure you're not inserting two shells into the machine, there's probably a shell stuck the upper die. You can tell if this is the case by feeling the inside of the upper die with your fingers. You should be able to feel lightly textured metal an a hole in the center.
If you feel inside the upper die and it is smooth, and there is no hole, that means you've got something stuck in the upper die. The pictures below show the machine turned upside down so you can see inside the upper die. The one on the left shows what the die should look like. The one on the right shows the die with a shell stuck in it.
^^ Good ...........................................^^Bad
The best way to prevent Double Bubble or Stuck Shell Syndrome is to make sure you're only using one shell at a time. Since the shells can come tightly packed they tend to stick together and disguise the fact that theres two. So here's what you do when you go to make buttons:
- Spread your shells out on the table
- Pick up a shell
- Drop it on the table with a little force so the edge hits the table
- Proceed making buttons worry-free
Tossing the shells edgewise on the table will usually break apart any stuck shells and prevent most problems.
3 comments:
I used my machine a lot and after awhile, I had this problem but I was only using one shell at a time. I messed with multiple papers etc. and I found that silicon spray from a local autozone/checkers works great and the machine just needed to be greased!
Hi Kool Kunz Klan,
Thanks for the tip! Where exactly did you apply the lube?
We had a machine come back recently with a strange rough spot on the inside of the die. The machine was displaying the same symptoms. We took a metal file and filed down the imperfection and the machine works fine now.
I wouldn't recommend that anybody file down the dies on their machines though. If your machine has imperfections in the metal, sending it back into Tecre Co is probably the best option.
Thanks!
Rebecca
You really are great, I got the stuck shell syndrome, I read your post and did something a little different from you and it worked, what I did, was take a flat head screw driver, I stuck the flat head just under the lip of the presser die (the one that has the 2 little bars attached to the side, and I lightly pushed down on the screw driver resting it on the die on the opposits side of the machine.It popped open and still do not know why it happened, but it did... Thank you again for helping us..
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