I wanted to put aircraft style holes in my model a visor. Being the cheap ******* I am and not wanting to send it out and wait for it to come back I decided to find a way to do it myself. I played around for a couple days experimenting with different ideas and came up with this. Poor mans dimple die. I grabbed my calipers and searched the local s**** yard where a local bearing manufacturer sends thier s****. I just happen to know where the s**** is sent because I work at the bearing company. So I had a idea what I was looking for. I would have turned one down but changed jobs and no longer have access to a machine shop. I had decided on 2 3/4 holes so I needed a inner bearing half that would just start in a 2 3/4 hole. Found one that measured 2.720. My initial plan was to find a outer that I could cut in half and use the race surface to seat against, but I found one that looked like it would work pretty good with a snap ring groove inside it. I wish I had taken more pics but I was not sure at the time if it wuld work or not. The pics should explain better than I can.
very nice , do you have to have the holes cut already and use this just to dimple them or do you just drill a hole the stud size and it cuts and dimples the final hole as it pulls through the metal ?
Unfortunatly you have to drill the holes out with a hole saw first. After I figured it out my second visor only took about an hour from start to finish.
Check with a sign supplier or sheet metal tool place and find a punch that you drill a 1/4" pilot hole, slide the sheet metal over the pin in the punch and place the upper die on the pin and smack it with a hammer and it will produce a perfect hole. You choose what size hole when you buy it. Description is difficult to image, but someone here hopefully can provide a picture. It is a round steel male, female heavy steel punch.
Nice method! You could use that on other pieces too. But won't holes in the visor defeat it's purpose?!
the hole punch is called a greenlee punch , I think you can get the smaller ones at Harbor Chinese freight
Greenlee is a brand name, the technical name is 'knock out punch'. Greenlee will have the largest variety of them, but don't expect them to be cheap. The common sizes are for electrical conduit and come in sizes up to 4" conduit. They also make 'specialty' punches for electronics, with all sorts of odd shapes/sizes (even square ones). The cheap knock-offs aren't as good and don't last long on heavier gauge metal. Once you get above 2" conduit size, you really need the hydraulic ram setup for anything thicker than light sheetmetal.
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