I’m familiar with the Waldron punches that are good for cutting out small discs of sheet styrene or light cardboard but I’m looking for a tool that will cut larger discs, say 1"-2" diameter, from styrene, fiberboard or balsa sheet. is there anything available that will do that?
I have such a tool, manufactured by DAFA, I think. It’s basically some sort of compass, with a hard tip on one side and a knife on the other. Does not work very well for smaller discs (i.e. smaller than 3/4 of 1’‘) but mine can go up to disks of 7’’ in diameter…
I believe OLFA has one in its range too.
thanx for the response, djmodels
OLFA and DAFA, are those the actual company names? do they have websites?
Olfa is an older Japanese manufacturer of extremely good tools. Just log OLFA in your search engine; they ain’t hard to find:)
This is what I’ve used for just about ever…
Long time ago, my Dad bought all the diameters of brass tubing that were available at the local hobby shop. Whenever we needed to cut out a certain size circle of plastic (or balsa, when we were into rubber-powered flying stuff) we took a knife and started cutting and/or shaving the inside diameter of one end or the outside of the other end until there was a sharp edge. Finishing up with some sand paper to even things out we turned this collection of brass tubing into a simple punch-set.
You could do the same thing with any piece of brass tube, or any other strong-walled soft-metal tubing. Once you’ve made your punch(es), you can then cut by tapping with a hammer or by rocking and rolling in a circular motion or twisting the tubing like a drillbit. Just remember, brass is soft and the edge will have to shaprened every now and again.
Fade to Black…
mmmm… Never though of that!