Office of Steam Forum for Model & Toy Steam Gas & Hot Air Engines

The punches are awesome.

Great video Charlie, those are the same punches I use. They are actually re-branded Boehm (French) punches. The best part about them is you can use two at a time and make a washer gasket/seal with one strike, no need to try and get the center hole "centered". Like you said, they are pricey, but I figured as many times as I'll use them that I might as well go all out and buy the biggest of both sets... they can even punch out Jensen "porthole" sight glass gaskets.

I would highly recommend this cutting pad from Amazon to save on your punches instead of using a block of wood like I previously used with my Chinese hollow punches. It doesn't seem like much for the price, but it makes clean cuts and saves on some spendy tools:



(Also, probably not necessary, but I use my 2 lb brass hammer to keep my punch handle looking new)