Abstract: An automatic machine for die cutting and creasing paperboard and similar paper materials, in sheet or continuous web form, into shaped package blanks and the like has a separation station at which the shaped blanks are separated from the waste portions of the sheet or web. The blanks are cut into the paperboard stock leaving just enough material, termed nicks, to hold the blanks and waste material together for transfer as a unit to a separation station. The machine is so designed that the male and female dies are simultaneously formed by cutting both from a single panel of plywood and even though the portions remaining between the individual die openings of the female ones of the dies are too narrow and weak to withstand the impact incident to the separation operation, are reinforced to provide the necessary strength by bonding a strip of creasing die to the lower face of the portions needing reinforcement.