You can buy punches from Roper Whitney in lots of shapes but they will be
$40-100+ per set of punch and die so it will get expensive fast, and then
you need a press with enough force and enough throat for the size of your
sheet. You could use Greenlee style punches, where you drill a pilot hole
and use a bolt to pull the punch into the die, but they make the Roper
Whitney stuff look cheap :-). If your sheet metal is thin enough, can you
use a RotoZip type tool? Won't get square corners without filing or a
nibbler, but it should cut fast and you can set up a guide template to get
accurate and repeatable cutouts.

-----
Regards,
Carl Ijames

"Steve B" wrote in message
. ..
My wife wants me to make some sconce lights out of sheets of sheet metal.
I can get paintlock of various thicknesses, but some is rather thick for
hand punching.

I want to punch squares or rectangles to get a stairstep southwest Indian
design type of thing, or variations on that theme.

Are there any punches made in a type that has a punch and a matching
backup to help cut the design? I want to do these myself with a hammer,
or perhaps there is something available that is run by air or hydraulic?
Something that won't cost an arm and a leg, and punch different shapes of
holes, squares, diamonds, rectangles, mostly about 1" max dimension in any
direction, with the holes being smaller, and they could be drilled.

TIA

Steve

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