So I've been drilling out a bunch of spot welds using a 3/8" Blair cutter. Quite often I've gone through both panels when i'd really rather not have. As you can well imagine, filling up a 3/8" hole is no easy task regardless if you use a copper backer or not. One idea I came up with was to cut a bunch of "plugs" from 3/8" rod and weld these in. I suppose that would work fine but ideally I wanted sheet metal plugs so I got thinking about a plug punch. The following photos are what I came up with and total labor was about an hour with a drill press.
The base is 2-1/2 x 2-1/2 x 3/6 wall (because I had it lying around). The top is 1" x 1" bar stock and the thickness serves as a guide for the "punch". The bolt holes were drilled and tapped into the base first, bolted together and then the punch hole was drilled through both to ensure alignment.
The punch is a grade 8 bolt with the head cut off. I'll probably dress it in my buddy's lathe but it works as is. My press is a home made unit with a 4 ton bottle jack.
The metal its punching is 18 ga - same as factory sheet metal.
The plugs will be migged or tigged.
The base is 2-1/2 x 2-1/2 x 3/6 wall (because I had it lying around). The top is 1" x 1" bar stock and the thickness serves as a guide for the "punch". The bolt holes were drilled and tapped into the base first, bolted together and then the punch hole was drilled through both to ensure alignment.
The punch is a grade 8 bolt with the head cut off. I'll probably dress it in my buddy's lathe but it works as is. My press is a home made unit with a 4 ton bottle jack.
The metal its punching is 18 ga - same as factory sheet metal.
The plugs will be migged or tigged.
