Above: Left: A selection of Multicyl punch presses with tooling from White-Line Machine & Tool. Right: Multicyl punch presses operate on shop air with a simple air valve for minimal energy use.
May 2025- Since Owner John White founded White-Line Machine & Tool Ltd. with his late father, Kevin, in 1989, the Midhurst, Ontario-based manufacturer of tailored punching and tooling products has used the relatively small punch presses from Multicyl Inc. in Bolton, Ontario.
The 3,000-sq.-ft. shop’s four-person team operates two air-over-oil presses, which describes the process that the Multicyl cylinder uses to produce the punching force, White says. “We use Multicyl presses because we do some components that are part of our standard product line. It would be like somebody who makes 3D printers would use 3D printers to make some of the components for the 3D printers.”
In addition to Bolton being only about a 40-minute drive from Midhurst, White says he appreciates Multicyl punch presses because they operate on shop air with a simple air valve for minimal energy use and without the need for electrical control and expensive wiring. “You have an air line going everywhere all over the manufacturing facility. You just plug into your shop air.”
White-Line also has CNC wire electrical discharge machines, milling and turning machines, and grinders, and produces custom dies for punch presses that conform to the required application, White explains. Typically, customers do not provide a die design but give White-Line the component that needs to be punched, such as a bracket for hanging a curtain rod, and the shop designs and creates dies to fabricate the finished part.
The working components of a die are made of A2, D2 and S7 tool steel. When working with stainless steel and other difficult-to-punch materials, Multicyl recommends using a high-quality tool steel because regular tool steels, such as A2, may compress or even break and cause problems.
In general, one die is produced for each job, White adds, but sometimes long parts require more than one die for more than one punch press, which would be lined up to produce different part features. White-Line makes about five to 15 custom dies monthly.
LIMITLESS APPLICATIONS
The range of parts that need to be punched varies, including solar panels, office furniture, store fixtures, transportation components, aluminum docks, fencing, sinks and more, but White notes that the shop produces a lot of dies for tubing and tube mandrel applications. For example, the end of a tube for a lawn mower handle might need to be pressed flat before having a hole punched in it and trimmed to be round so that it can be attached to the mower.
“I can’t walk through a single day without seeing something that we made a die for at some point,” he says. “Even looking out the window, I see things we’ve made like dies for the brackets on an electrical pole.”
Many die customers already have a punch press from Multicyl or another manufacturer. However, if a customer does not have a press, or needs to replace an older press that no longer meets current safety requirements, White-Line could sell a package that includes a Multicyl system and the die. “For the Multicyl, we can adjust the stroke to meet safety requirements a lot easier,” White says.
Multicyl reports that the patented self-adjusting stroke allows the point of operation opening to be adjusted to 1/4 in. on many applications. On applications where this is impossible or impractical, Multicyl can provide a two-hand anti-tie-down safety air control package. In addition, Multicyl applications should be properly guarded to comply with all applicable standards for operator safety.
“Do not let the small size of a Multicyl mislead you—high forces are produced, and severe injury may result if proper safety procedures are not adhered to,” according to White.
When it comes to the cylinders used in its punch presses, Multicyl offers single-acting and double-acting cylinders. The former includes the MC and XL models, and the latter includes the DX and DL models.
SINGLES AND DOUBLES
A single-acting cylinder uses a bumper-style die and a prepped ram comes down at the top of the die and then goes back up, and the die lifts itself back up with springs, White explains. “A single-acting cylinder has all the pressure it needs to do something while it’s going out, but on its return stroke when it’s coming back to the place it started, the stroke can’t do any work.”
He adds that a bumper-style die does not have to attach to the cylinder and could be placed into any punch press. “You just put it in and then the cylinder comes down and hits the top and goes back up.”
A single-acting cylinder might be used to punch a hole in a thin piece of sheet, which does not require a large opening for that sheet to slide in and out of the die, White says. However, sometimes a hole or another feature needs to be punched into a larger part, such as a muffler, and the die must open significantly. That scenario requires a doubleacting cylinder. “Then we wouldn’t put springs in that.”
Instead, a double-acting cylinder attaches to the top of the die to have the cylinder open the die, White explains. The cylinder would come down in one stroke and back in the second stroke.
“The double-acting cylinder has an increased amount of force going forward, but it also has an applied force coming backwards,” he says. “Typically, when a large amount of feed clearance is required to get the component that’s being punched in and out of the die, then you would require a double-acting cylinder.”
When designing a die, White says the shop wants to know what type of punch press it is going into, even though the die design could lend itself to various different press styles and practices. “It may not fit all the presses, so we would design it based on the press that they were using at the time.” With more and more punch press work being automated over the past two decades, White says his company makes its dies differently when they are being fed by a robot.
“The interface between the die and person is different than between the die and the robot.” A Multicyl punch press requires little maintenance, according to White, but are often rebuilt, which involves installing new seals and guides, as they continue to produce millions of parts. “I have customers using them for 30 years.”
Multicyl Inc., 800-388-6359, http://multicyl.com/
White-Line Machine & Tool Ltd., 800-561-5442, http://white-line.com/
