Aluminum Beverage Can Poptop Manuf. knowledge needed

I spent considerable time doing work on steel beverage ends and am sure that they are made similair to aluminum ends. Used a shell making press which made intial shell and curl on end. Tranfer die was used to do rivet formings and scoring. The tab was made on prog die which feed into transfer die to facilitae tab attachment. Score was set to residual thinkness of approx. .002 of an inch on .0092 double reduced tin plate. Ends were pressure tested to give 90 to 100 lbs leak resistance. This work was done at the Weirtec facility of Weirton Steel around 1990 to 1995 where I was employed.

First thing to do is write up a description of your idea with the date and location include as much detail as possible even if you use some not proven measurement. Put this in a registered letter to yourself and do not open it. that will verify you had the idea as of that date.

The usual problem is controlling the stroke of the press to produce the indent or form exactly the same each time. Very expensive high speed presses are used for this job.

If this not a help then we need more detail of what exactly you want to do? What is the problem you are trying to overcome??

Thanks so much for these responses. Jwgri answered some of the scoring and psi questions to be posted in my need to know list later - thank you! As for protection I'm using the Patent Pro program to file a provisional. Until that's done, I'm working on animating die cross-sections to illustrate how the forming will be accomplished.

From these animated illustrations (if I can post animated GIF's here), I hope to learn from those who are experience, if the aluminum can be cold formed this way OR is the current can end hot formed? If only fixed images are allowed in here then I will attempt to post them in sequential jpg or gif to illustrate the double fold I need to accomplish. I know how to do it - I just don't know how much radial stretch the aluminum will withstand in each stroke without fracturing the metal (if cold stamped).

Eventually I hope to find a few individuals to work directly with so that not too much is disclosed unnecessarily into public domain which would eliminate my ability to legally patent this. My patent may also be a 'method of manufacture'.

I will try to post a non-disclosing image of the fold with dimensions soon if possible. There are many unique things that make this design function possible - I just have to be careful not to disclose too many without a non-disclosure agreement.

Thanks again

Good Luck on you project. I will be looking forward to seeing more information and possibly drawing and pictures of product. I miss the work on this type of projects, I find working in the automotive parts making not near as interesting and rewarding as it was when I was working in product development work for the can companies. let me know if I can be of any help, I am damn good at die setting and trouble shooting end dies.

All fold widths are the same and the .0625 may be smaller in the end product.

In my above JPG I should have said "..may be smallest in the end product..". Obviously with 7 billion cans produced a year, the least aluminum used the better and my goal is, by design, to produce this with the same aluminum stock currently in use. The width of the fold above (.0625") is not important. Minimum is best.