2020 Souvenir Plate

Jerry Christiansen

Mega Poster
WMSTR Lifetime Member
Hi everyone,

This evening Merle M and I met with Ron R at Peter Kieffer's shop. Ron is the fellow that does the die work for the souvenir plates. We 'proofed' the die. After we do the 'proofing', the die is sent off to be heat treated. Right now there are four 2020 plates in existence. I will drop one of at Larson Welding tomorrow (23 July). If you stop by and ask nicely, maybe the ladies will let you touch it. ;)...


Here is a picture.

2020 plate.jpg

Wow, the plate looks out of round! Getting a picture of a shiny object is difficult. Trust me, the plat is round and all the letter show up nicely.

If you look in the newsletter that arrived the other day, you will see how you can purchase your own plate. Right now there are NO plates ready for sale. The one at Larson welding is for display only.

Later,
Jerry Christiansen


 
Hi Tim,

Thank you for setting this up!
As soon as we 'run' the plates we will get the word out and get some to you.

Thanks to everyone for purchasing a plate!

Later,
Jerry Christiansen
 
Hi everyone,

The plate making crew got together this afternoon and made some 2020 plates.


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Clint A is on the left. He was feeding the strips into the forming die. Austin W, with his back to us, took the plate out of the trim die. Austin and his brother Cody played catch all afternoon. Austin didn't hand plates over, he just tossed them. Dan K is behind the green press. He was feeding and running the trim die.


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Merle M, on the left, ran the forming press. Cody W, sitting in the stool, caught trimmed plates that Austin tossed to him and sanded the burr off the back side. Cassidy W did quality control and kept the count. Brekke K, in the yellow t-shirt, carried the strips from the forming die to the trim die. He also applied a bit of lube on the strip before they were trimmed so the plates didn't stick in the trim die.


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We weren't able to get the strips right next to Clint like we usually do. Brekke got double duty. He carried the blank strips to Clint to feed into the forming die and carried the formed stirps to the trim die.

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Xander K, on the right, put the plates into their bag. Amanda K put the paper insert in the bag with each plate. My station was straight ahead of Amanda. I stapled the bags shut and then put the plates in boxes. When we got our run finished, Jane had supper ready for us in Casselton.

Plates will be delivered to Larson Welding tomorrow, Monday, 24 August. Anyone can stop in and pick plates there for $20.00 each. Remember, cash or check, NO CREDIT CARD at Larson Welding. Gretchen D is going to stop at Larson Welding tomorrow and pick up plates that she will deliver to Tim D in the Twin Cities. Tim will start mailing plates out to everyone that ordered on-line as soon as he gets them.

If you haven't ordered a plate yet, get on the stick and get it done.

Later,
Jerry Christiansen
 
Great work! I was greeted by a Gretchen on Monday evening with 3 boxes of plates! I'll be working to ship out the pre-orders this week, and of course, continue to ship out new orders too! --- Sidenote, we have the 2019 DVD available in the online store and a handful of other trinkets
 
Hi everyone,

If you or someone you know would like a 2020 plate, get one ordered.
There is NO guarantee that 2020 plates will be available at the 2021 show.

Plates can be ordered on line at the Rollag.com site. Click on the store button and you can find them. If you order a plate from the on-line store, it will be mailed to you.
OR
If you are in Fargo, plates can be picked up at Larson Welding. You can just stop in. You do not need to order the plate on-line first.

Have I mentioned that people interested in getting a plate need to get that done soon?
Have I mentioned that people SHOULD NOT count until waiting until the 2021 show to pick up a 2020 plate?.

Remember, if you want a 2020 plate, get on the stick.

Later,
Jerry Christiansen

 
Hi again everyone,

I spoke with the fine folks at Larson Welding. I got the impression that some people are planning to wait until we make the next run of plates, then they will stop in and pick up a plate. That line of thought will probably not work. The number of plates we make in our next run will be determined by how many plates people have ordered. In other words, if we have 45 plates on backorder, we will make 45 plates. We will NOT be making very many plates beyond what is on backorder. We will make plates to fill the orders we have. If you want a plate, get to Larson Welding with your money in hand or order one from the Rollag.com website. If you want a plate before Christmas, the order needs to be made soon.

Later,
Jerry Christiansen
 
Hi again everyone,

If you have been procrastinating about getting your plate ordered, now is the time to do it.

We will make another run of plates between now and Thanksgiving. We will make enough to fill all the orders that have been placed at Larson Welding and at the store on Rollag.com. We are NOT going to make a bunch of extra plates.

If you want a plate, get your order in now. If you wait until the day before Christmas, don't expect to find one under your tree.

Later,
Jerry Christiansen
 
This past Saturday another run of 2020 Show Plates was made. There were around a dozen of us there for this run of 80 plates. There have been some pictures and explanations of the process posted here before but this time I got some video. HERE is a link to the video of the process.
One correction from the video, when we did the math with the updated pressured we are actually forming the plates with about 210 tons instead of the 180 tons stated in the video.

Few pictures from Saturday:

This "Special Plate" found its resting place in the scrap bin at the end of the day
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Here Brekke is showing us a strip that has been formed but not yet trimmed
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In this picture you can see the packaging department hard at work. Notice Jerry's shenanigans in the back. If you watch the video above you can see him un-bagging plates at the end of the video. Any guesses what he is up to? Stay tuned for an exciting announcement about this!
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Craig,

I am glad you were able to come out last Saturday. Thanks for taking the pictures and making the video!

Some may wonder why the plates were made here and not at the Hill. When plates are made during the show, the crew forms the plates on Friday and Saturday. The trimming takes place on Sunday and Monday. That means that plates made during the show are not available for sale until sometime Sunday. We need to have plates ready to sell on the first day of the show, so we have 'off campus' capability to make plates.

We decided that getting the crew to work outside at this time of year would be difficult. Getting the Montana boiler fired up and then cleaned up would also be challenging. For these reasons, we elected to make these plates inside as shown.

Some folks may have noticed that strips of aluminum were used here instead of the individual squares used on the Hill. Holding a strip of aluminum in the die for forming on the Steam Hammer would be interesting. Holding the strip in place for the trimming die on the Steam Hammer would be even more interesting. If you want to be the person holding the strip when plates are formed and then trimmed at the Hill, contact me to sign up. ;)...

Later,
Jerry Christiansen
 
For those inquiring minds that want to know what Jerry was up to check out this thread here! Turns out he was not just undoing what we had previously done for his own amusement :p... Some of the New- Old stock plates were in bags that were damaged. He was unbagging those plates and rebagging them in fresh new bags to be ready to ship!
 
Before we did the re-bagging, some members of the crew questioned doing that. They were concerned that we would remove the patina and reduce the value of the plate. I understand patina increasing or holding the value of an old item. Some how I don't think the dirt on the plastic bags counts as patina. I will bet that if someone ordered one of those plates and in came in a bag that dirty, we would hear about it.

On the other hand, if someone wants some bags with patina to put their plates in, we might be able to make a deal . . . .

Later,
Jerry Christiansen
 
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