Hub Hobby Shop

Making a Punch and Die Set

 by Phil Novak   

Recently I purchased the Verlinden Wespe interior, and I found that I needed to scratch build the driver’s instrument panel. So now I needed a way to punch a circular hole in a piece of styrene.

Drilling just didn’t produce the effect that I was looking for and a hole punch created too big of a hole. So what I decided to do was buy a set of nails in different widths and grind the pointy end off so that it was flat. Then I bought a block of aluminum and drilled corresponding holes in them as guides for the punch.

And that’s how simple it is. Now you can punch any sized hole in a piece of plastic or thin metal, and you can save the punch out for making rivets or any other kind of fitting.