Meld the best of both designs! The wooden jig holds the leather snugly in place without moving so making a sleeve makes perfect sense. Then why don't you just drill holes in your wooden jig just like your son did in his acrylic plastic. Next, I would have done as John Luijsterburg suggested (below) and drilled the holes a little large so you can punch the holes directly thru the template. If you do that then instead of screwing the wooden sleeve onto a wooden back plate, screw it down on a piece of plastic cutting board just like the white one you use on top of your anvil. The jig will then be slip-free requiring no clamping of your leather together with the jig and is fully assembled so all you have to do is slide your belt in, set it on the anvil and punch away.
If John would have made the holes a little bit larger, you could punch the belt right through the template. This is of great help because my holes a a bit brick&brack. So John is the champ of the day. Perhaps next time a template fir rounding corners😉
Josh Luijsterburg Hi Josh...we really need some parallel shank punches as my existing Dixon ones are curved...and narrow ....toward the tip....with parallel we could punch through and still be on target...as you say that would be far better. Best regards Harry
I was half expecting you to be trying to make a template of the cat, given the thumbnail. Now that would have been a challenge! Could you mount a round punch in a drill press and use a fence/ guide to line up the cuts? That would certainly make it very easy to centre the holes.
Open the troughs on your jig, put nails in the holes on top cap protruding a mil, add a cam clamp or two to the sides. Place belt in trough, place top cap over trough, clamp down.
For those that don't have your X-Carve, how about producing a paper template, via a DTP program, which can then be held on top of the leather using small clamps or clothes pegs then just punch through both paper and leather
Excellent job from both contestants there. If you wanted to have infinitely variable spacing you could possibly use an adaption of an aircraft rivet spacing tool. I’m currently scouring our our favourite on line auction site as we speak. Thanks again for another great video. 👍🏻👍🏻
Like the video but you both missed the obvious solution behind you at the start of the video. A nice arbour press that only needs a tool holder and a fence with an indexing pin to space the holes. The bonus, it is fast and precise. I will grant that the template is a tad more portable than the arbour press.
Excellent! When shall one find them on the web store? :) I'd clamp it to the bench top with a spring clamp just to keep it in place and have both hands free. And if you made it from thicker material, you'll want to increase the size of the holes to accommodate the outside dimensions of the punch.... why I say that, is that making it thicker and handling the whole tool means you could also punch directly without just marking first and repunching second. Must get my new laser tube...
I make templates for every shape I need with my 3D-Printer. Templates for corners, key chains, westernstyle spurstraps...Just the size of the printer is the limit. I design them on the computer and it’s a great improvement compared to my cardboard templates
Make the new templates to fit the top of your jig. With slightly larger holes and cutting board as the base piece of jig and you'll have an actual cutting station with perfect control.
Hi,Harry. Can you tell me,where i can bay this oval very good punch,or punch set,like yours? Your Pro punch is very interesting for me. One link please. Thanks.
Interesting project, I think you should get a set of straight walled punches and punch right through the template and eliminate one complete step. Why didn't you introduce John to all your fans?
Love the plastic template. When will they be commercially available?!? My challenge is lining up the oval punch so that the holes are all in line and not askew. How does one do that without an HDPE template?
