Lee Valley Square Hole Punches (50K59)

If you've been embellishing your furniture with square plugs, then it's somewhat likely you've been drilling the holes with a brad point or similar bit, and then using a hollow mortise chisel to square the holes. It's very effective and certainly a lot easier than squaring up holes with chisels.

These new Square Hole Punches from Lee Valley Tools are, essentially, trimmed down versions of hollow mortise chisels. They consist of a precisely machined tip (in six sizes from 3/16" to 1/2" square) ground from hardened O1 tool steel, and threaded onto a hollow shank machined from a milder steel (to absorb shock when you tap the punch over the hole).

You use them the same way you would hollow mortise chisels; however, the benefit with these Lee Valley punches is that they're of a more convenient size. At about 3" long they fit comfortably in the hand, and you can easily insert a brad point bit into the hollow shank to assist in aligning the square tip. At around $24 they're a bit more expensive that an economy hollow chisel ($15) but less expensive than a premium chisel (starting at $40). Plus, you're not paying for the mortise chisel, which you'll likely never use.

Two part design

Square, sharp tip

The corners on these square hole punches are ground precisely square, and the lips are sharp and ready to go to work. Making square holes goes really quickly - drill an appropriately sized hole, install punch over drill bit, line up the punch using a try square, and then tap the punch home with a wooden mallet. Use a small chisel to clean out the hole. Unless you bang out hundreds of plugs a week, then you'll get a lot of use out of the punches before they need sharpening; for this Lee Valley sells cone sharpeners.

Drill hole, install punch over drill bit, line up the punch, and then tap it home

Some clean up required

For some reason Lee Valley doesn't sell replacement tips; it seems to me that it's the tip that will most likely need replacing (particularly if you drop it tip down onto a concrete floor). If you avoid hitting the shank with a metal hammer then it should last indefinitely.

Great product with the usual no-quibble return policy from Lee Valley.

Reviewed March 2010