Hello Steve,

I don't know about the hole making, but I would sandwich the sheets, preferably individually, between scrap plywood or similar and run them through a vertical bandsaw with a wood cutting blade on it .

Others no doubt will come in with advice on the hole front

Regards

Brian

Ah, not quite the size I had imagined. Any other oddities to be declared, while I think about the cutting again?

Regards

Brian

Cut oversize and use a router to trim either against a straightedge or if a lot to do make a template then use a bearing guided bit. It's not a lot different to Formica and other high pressure laminates.

May I ask if paxolin is a must as the material? If you could change to a modern thermoplastic (PVC, ABS, PC/ABS, PMMA or even HIPS) your life will be far easier machining the sheets.

Machining is an option but these thermoplastics could be punched as well. Punch tooling and a crude indexing system of stacked blocks against a fence could be made easily. Hard steel punches would not be required for 3/32" holes, unhardened drill rod punch and die would likely last for hundreds or thousands of holes before sharpening.

Just food for thought.

I think we need to wait for the OP to clarify his question as some of the methods suggested probably don't apply.

Clamping the thin material (especially if its a stack of them) between sacrificial pieces is going to be tricky if the finished parts are the size of the full sheet of material, and that's before one contemplates what drilling machine has a 600mm throat!

Its unlikely that Steve wants to drill these with a pistol drill as he is already mentioned the drill drifting off if stacked.

I presume the 0.5mm tolerance relates to the parts after they have been cut out of the sheet.

Ian P

I would sandwich the sheet between plywood. Then I would have to decide what to use to cut it. My first choice would be mt tablesaw with the blade set as low as possible and still sever the sheet.

Second choice would be a mini-circular saw like this:

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Rockwell-Rk3440K-Versacut-4-0-Amp-Mini-Circular-Saw-Kit-With-Laser/20434561?athcpid=20434561&athpgid=athenaItemPage&athcgid=null&athznid=PWVUB&athieid=v0&athstid=CS020&athguid=ce537e76-f29-167d40feff1bd1&athena=true

Third choice would be my bandsaw. Probable with a 12 -14 tpi blade

Recommend flat punches for simplicity of sharpening. However. if you have capability to grind two angles about 20 degrees each, from OD to centre, to make a tent shaped end on the punch, this will cut progressively and take much less force. If these parts were punched originally in various sizes, the makers may have had various fence-type dies operating on a base plate with stops or pins at the various hole positions. If you should want to make square nuts with one hole, you only need a width guide each side and an end stop on a lever. The stock is advanced to the stop, hole is punched, stop is retracted to push the part out the back. Stock is pulled back, stop reset inward, repeat process. Before long you have a big bin of nuts.

As late as the 1990's the firm I used to work for had hand feed dies like this for heavy brass parts with multiple holes. The stock would come cut into strips on a long wood case and be picked up and fed by one of a pair of very tough and strong older ladies who had worked at the firm since WW2. Great people doing a tough job. The job was done this way because the heavy brass was either not available on large coil for feeding to an automatic press, or there was a tight flatness spec on them that coiled stock would not be able to be flattened to.