My 1st home-made tool: HSS centre-punch

[Seb Palmer]

Just finished finished making my first home-made tool. I've made a few jigs and such before. But not a tool.

And this was in metal. I took a DeWalt drill bit (?), from a set with 2 x each bit, chopped off the business end with my angle-grinder, and then put the remnant in my drill and turned that against the angle-grinder mounted in my vice.

This was my fourth attempt. I started with a few bolts, and made a couple of punches, only to discover the medium carbon steel wasn't strong enough to punch a mark in the steel I'm working with.

A trawl through Google and YouTube revealed a helpful video, in which the guy makes his punch from an HSS dingus.

Here's mine:

I tested it, and it works. And unlike the medium carbon steel bolt punches, it retains a decent point. I'm very happy! I made it so I can make my own version of Neil Paskin's dowel-making tool. That's the thing in the pic wth the paper template attached to it....

Mod Edit:-

 

[Seb Palmer]

Hmm... images still not showing, this link should allow you to click through to my pic:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/2BsPBtZSGDs7AvOM2

 

[Rorschach]

Can you file it? Most HSS drills have soft shanks.

 

[Seb Palmer]

I imagine so. But I haven't tried to as yet.

I just punched all the locator points for my dowel-template, which went well. And I've now drilled all of the marks through with a 5mm bit.

Next job is drilling the actual 6 mm to 13 mm (in 0.5 mm increments) holes.

 

[Rorschach]

Ahh I see you made it from an SDS shank, in that case it is still carbon steel, not HSS.