Source of home type punch press??????

[Stimw]

Last punch and die set I bought cost about $25. It's been about 2 years though. You would have to make a holding fixture for them to hold alignment. On my machine the punch comes through a piece of metal called a stripper. When the punch retracts it brings the material up hitting the stripper and removing the punch from the work. It takes some effort to do this. A fixture could have a place for a pry bar to seperate the punch from the work.
20 ton isn't going to punch very much, my 50 ton has a 3' arm coming from a 4" hydraulic cylinder. Quite a bit of leverage.

 

[RedRocker]

I have a Famco 6 ton punch press for sale. It's a flywheel type real punch press, not a hydraulic press. PM me if you're interested.

 

[scott_vt]

Mornin Ron,
I use this little punch at work quite often its nice for light duty stuff up to 1/8" thick. Anything thicker and you need hydraulic punch. But it can be gotten pretty cheap. Im thinkin a couple hundred bucks for a used unit. Here is a pic of it.

 

[RonR]

Scott, THANKS.

Most of what I would do is 1/8" to 3/8", and I don't have space for two, so I think I'll continue to wish for a hydraulic one.

Thanks for the idea though.

Ron

 

[Renze]

On a former employer of mine, they had a project of re-sheeting about 4 or 5 advertising poles around the country.
They were sheeted with aluminium sheets, with a U rail, brake pressed on top and bottom of the sheet. on these bent flaps they were bolted onto steel frames the size of an aluminium sheet, these sections were bolted together to make an 8 by 15 meter advertising surface, which were mounted in a triangle shape on poles of about 20 meter high.

Because of the hundreds of identical aluminium sheets that had to be bent and punched, the company installed a steel rail on their 4 meter wide, 300 ton brake press, on which 6 punch units were bolted. The punch units were C shaped simple things, and needed the brake press to push on top of all 6 of them, this meant that they could punch all 6 holes in one move of the brake press, each at the correct distance apart.

I dont know where to get these C shaped punch units but they align the punch dies correctly and can be compressed by a log splitter or shop press.

 

[earthface]

Look around OLD fly wheel punch presses can be had REAL cheap. Usualy the ones that wont meet OSHA specs. Sometimes they can be had for scrap value or even FREE. Take a look around the back of large shops and junk dealers. Good machine dealers wont even sell them if they dont meet OSHA specs. But be aware that these thing can be dangerous, they will punch a hole so quick that you eye may not even see it happen ;((