pipe punching

Do you have a sketch of what your trying to do?

your trying to get a block of material, and punch a pipe from it.

you have a pipe and your trying to punch a hole in it?

If the latter, why not use a drill, milling cutter, hole saw, laser, water-jet?

You would be better off drilling the hole. Another option is laser cutting.

A mill can also be used. Furthermore, what is the thickness of the pipe? You can't punch material that is thicker then the smallest portion of the die or the die will break. If the combined wall thickness of both walls is thicker then the die then that will happen.

You can't really punch a pipe or square/rectangular tubing because you need the botton die to be located on the opposite side of the wall that is being punched.

What you're going to get is the top die crushing the wall of the pipe. Also the shank of the top die is only about 1 to 1-1/2 inches long. Any longer and you risk breakage. If the pipe is any largr then 1 inch or 25mm in diameter, then the shoulder of the die is going to hit and start crushing your pipe.

You're better off just drilling.

I'm in the process of building a Off Road buggy frame -> http://snaketails.spaces.live.com/

The guy who we are storing the frame at has all the "toys"

He has a Horizontal mill with a boring bar in setup to the diameter of the tube, so the notching can be done to the tube size on almost any angle.

He also has a "Belt Sander Notching tool" fairly large machine that uses a belt sander to take the end of the pipe.

If at any time we needed to make a smaller hole, it was generally done with a hole saw then maybe a end-mill cutter or boring bar.

an 8.5mm drill is easily available, if your going to punch the tube, then the die for the punch will need to slide down the inside of the tube to stop the tube collapsing, then you have the problem of removing it after.

The cheapest methods you will find in the comments above.

I found this tread on a Google search. Thought I'd jump in anyway. The Number one Question is :what is the quantity of production run. If any. If you need a large number of parts, a die is always cheaper. most holes can be easily punched in a tube using the tube itself for support with a support nest & arbor. 30-40 hr job