Punching A Perfect Shim

Chuck Buski
Phoenixville, Pa.

First, I cut a piece of shim stock to the needed size and lay it under the block needing shimmed and transfer the holes using the appropriate transfer punch for obtaining accurate hole location. Then, using a standard shim-stock hole punch set that has nine fractional sizes, I locate the shim stock in the punch block/die set exactly where it needs to be to line up with the tooling being shimmed using the same size transfer punch as the hole I'm punching. While keeping pressure on the shim, I remove the transfer punch, install the shim punch and punch out the hole for a precise fit.