How to use a rotary leather punch hole

It needs help, they all do no matter where you buy them from new. Take each tube out and clean the inside. A little WD40 with some steel wool wound on a nail works pretty well. Then sharpen each tube. Take some magnification to the edge and see where it has no cutting edge and and work your way around. Keep checking as you work through the grits to make sure you are keeping the edge and bevel even. Take the bur off the inside edge of the tube. I like the fine abrasive cord for this. Have not had much luck with rouge or compound on a piece of string. You can use crocus around a nail or whatever is handy.  Replace the tube and make sure the punch end meets the anvil squarely all the way around. Now we will get into the part where things polarize.

I punch into paraffin repeatedly until I have a stack of it clearing the tube. I like beeswax for a lot of things - like thread. It is a stickier wax and paraffin is a slipperier wax. Paraffin will lubricate you punch tubes more and help the punchings clear inside the tube better than beeswax. 

I am going to politely disagree with Chas. I punch right onto the anvil base. The copper or soft brass base is pretty forgiving and with a sharp punch tuned to meet the anvil squarely, it works. Over time the punch will imprint into the anvil and no biggie there.  Some puse a piece of leather , some a piece of cutting mat, it is your choice, try both and see what is easier for you. You will notice most of of these old pros give a little twist as they punch - conciously or subconciously. That makes a bit of a slicing action that helps a lot and results in a smooth clean punch with minimal effort. 

Care of these punches - A little care goes a long way. If a punch starts to drag a bit, a light stropping helps a lot. A few old guys have shown me their "little secret tip". Take a piece of crocus and twist it around the end of the punch every so often, then the same inside on a nail. One guy took a saddle spike and made vertical "grit" grooves in it with sandpaper. He would lightly put it into the end of the punch and give a few twists to do the inside edge, A make shift butchers steel. Clean the tubes out when you are done using them by punching wax until the leathers clear. Corrosion inside the tube will make them drag or packup and make punching as hard as using a dull tube. 

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