Looking for a cheap manual or elc hole punch

What I want or would like to be able to do is punch 1/8in holes into 1/8in flat stock steel over n over n over n over again without much trouble.

I fab parts for jap bike [plenty of folkd doing the HD thing] and end up drilling 1000s of holes per week.

Can't afford no fancy machine as a drill bit works but would like to see if I can get an easy cheap shortcut to drilling all them pilot holes. If I could punch 1/8in holes I could then just jam my step bits through. But when you do so much work after a while the only way to make things last is to drill small 1/8in starter pilot holes.

And I am sick of drillin so many holes. Would be neat to find a cheap easy way to punch 1/8in starter holes in 1/8in flat stock.

 

I'm not an expert but 1/8 stock is pretty thick steel to be punching 1/8 holes in without some heavy duty equipment. You would need about a 2 ton press for mild steel. I don't think you would be able to do it with one of the manual punches with the big rotary wheel. I think you would probably need a mechanical punch with a big fly wheel or a hydraulic punch. Mechanical's are fast but dangerous and I'm pretty sure banned unless you can find an old one. Hydraulic punches are slow. You can get a hand punch for sheet up to 16 gauge but the dies go dull very quickly and you can only put holes close to the edge. For the bigger punches you would need tool steel punches to make the holes and a way to sharpen them.