A nifty little tool I made---

[dparker]

Brian: I did it a little differently. Over the years I have bought most all of the sizes of "nesting" brass tubing from hobby shops around the area. I just cut off a piece of the appropriate diameter and sharpen one end and put the other in the drill press and use a piece of wood for a backup. To get the plug out you can push it out with a piece of rod if you are going to use it for a pad or if you want the hole it will be in the stock you are spinning it into.
Do not chuck too hard or you may crush the tubing but it will leave a nice hole and it can be slightly adjusted for diameter by sharpening from the inside or the outside of the tubing to a knife like cutting edge.
This works good in fiber gasket material, leather and in rubber without distorting the main material. I now have several smaller sizes for use in soft materials.
When I was working, I would get scraps of steel tubing to use the same way in thick rubber sheets to make bolt holes for pipe flanges and weld a piece of rod in the dull end to fit in the chuck and grind a hole a ways back from the sharp end to be able to use a rod to push out the waste discs. I saved the small discs for gluing under some models or tooling to minimize vibration or scratching the surface the units were sitting on.
don

 

[rickharris]

A commercial wad cutter, as this tool is usually called, usually has thick walls and is sharpened to the final required diameter, A slot milled in the side through to the central hole allows the wad to be pushed out.

 

[Foozer]

How the heck do I put in 1/8" diameter holes for the three #5-40 screws that hold the valve body together. I took a peice of 1/4" mild steel rod and chucked it up in my lathe, then used a 5/16" drill bit in the tailstock mounted chuck to drill a "cone" into the end of the rod. Then I turned that same end down to 1/8" diameter.

Quick clean and easy, final turn down gave you a nice sharp edge and the rest is history. But its so much fun to use them big Ol scissors to cut out them little holes

 

[Speedy]

this is a very good video, same idea

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsOFl3stACc&feature=channel_page[/ame]

 

[1Kenny]

Have made a few out of old tv and radio antennas. They are nice thin wall tubes and when you split them apart you get 3 or 4 sizes that sharpen easy.

Kenny