[ARC5] FW: Hole for octal socket ... Try Unibits

[Fuqua, Bill L]

  The set of Harbor Freight hole punches is $20.
Now saying that, I have used their drill bits and stepped bits.
What I can say is that they often use soft materials. I the last set of unibits did not
last long, maybe 15 or so holes in 1100 aluminum. I once got a set of their titanium
coated drill bits and while drilling a 1/8 inch hole the it seemed that the drill broken,
after it stopped, it had not broken but was bent at a right angle. That was soft stuff
and even though it was coated with a hard material the underlying material was too soft
soft.
  But, for their price and if you are only making a few holes a year, it is not so bad.
  I have had very strange incidents with their products. I once ordered 3 of their deep throat
hole punch sets, a sort of copy of the Whitney No. XX punch. I got  a letter stating that the
order would be delayed so I waited and then called. They said there was a problem with
the product and they sent the lot back to China and was waiting for a new shipment. These
were $20 each compared to a $250 Whitney set.
  After about a year they arrived. And looked just fine. I am sure it would not stand up
to the 1.2 ton rating of the Whitney punch but would be fine for my projects.
I soon learned what the problem was. apparently the punch and the die holders were off center from
one another. Their solution was not to trash the whole shipment and do it over, they just made the hole
on the die offset. So, you have to rotate the die to line up with the punch. What a hassle.
  Another odd thing was a timing light I purchased for working on my car. It behaved a bit strangely and
would sometimes produce multiple flashes. I disassembled the thing and noticed that the inductive pickup
had only conductor going to the strobe unit. A single conductor wire. The inductive pickup was constructed
correctly, a C core with windings and a sliding core to close up the magnetic loop with two terminals but
only one was used. It seems that id did not work correctly so they just went with capacitive
coupling which allowed not only the pulses picked up by the probe but any ignition wires that the
lead going to the strobe was resting against. Isn't Chinese engineering wonderful?
  I still buy stuff there  but have to be somewhat careful.
73
Bill wa4lav

________________________________________
From: ARC5 [arc5-bounces at mailman.qth.net] on behalf of Kenneth G. Gordon [kgordon2006 at frontier.com]
Sent: Tuesday, February 03, 2015 2:34 PM
To: Arc5@
Subject: Re: [ARC5] Hole for octal socket ... Try Unibits

On 3 Feb 2015 at 12:40, David C. Hallam wrote:

> Have you priced Greenlea punches lately?  The D, square, and shape types
> are out of sight in price.  Unless you have lots of special holes to
> make, they are impractical.  Even the round ones are priced too high for
> the average home brewer.

Who amongst us has enough money to buy any of those NEW? I sure don't,
and even if I had, I wouldn't.

>  I have a good set of the round hole ones that
> I have picked up over the years at garage sales, flea markets, etc.

Yes. I found several at our local university's surplus. I even found some in a
dumpster.

> For
> larger holes I use a fly cutter in my drill press.

If you don't have a drill press, fly-cutters are almost impossible to use...

Ken W7EKB
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