Rotary Punch or Drive Punch for Strap Holes
One tool squeezes, the other takes a mallet, and a thick strap knows the difference.
A rotary punch and a drive punch both cut a round plug out of leather, and the argument between them comes down to where the force comes from: your grip on a pair of handles, or a mallet coming down on a steel tube. Grip runs out. A mallet does not, as long as the bench under it holds still. My bias, up front: I would put a drive punch through a bridle strap every time. Then I will tell you the one job where I’d hand you the rotary and shut up.
Video: Leather Revolving Hole Punch, from Weaver Leather Supply on YouTube.
That’s Weaver Leather Supply showing its revolving punch, the wheel of tubes most people mean when they say rotary. Here is the case for each tool, and the place where my own case falls apart.
What a rotary punch is built to do
Six tubes on a wheel, a brass anvil, and a limit printed on the box.
A rotary punch is a pair of pliers with a turret. Spin the wheel, pick a tube, squeeze. Tandy’s Craftool Economy Rotary Hole Punch carries six fixed tubes from 5/64 inch up to 3/16 inch, closes onto a solid brass anvil, and is sold for basic leathercraft and occasional use. The listing gives the maximum leather thickness as 4 to 5 oz, which works out to 1.6 to 2.0 mm.
Weaver’s compound action revolving punch is the heavy version. Six tubes again, German steel, and a linkage the page says gives 70% more power than an average punch with less strain on the hand and forearm. The tubes cannot be replaced. The page also admits a revolving punch can be stiff out of the box and says to oil the pivot and the head.
Montana Leather Company, in a guide on how to punch holes in leather, sums it up in two lines. A rotary punch saves time switching between sizes. It is also “less precise than normal single-blade tools,” and the best time to use one is for smaller holes in thinner leather.
Write that number down. Four to five ounces. A dress belt can live there. A briefcase strap does not.
What a drive punch needs from you
A tube, a mallet, and something solid enough to stop the blow.
A drive punch is a hardened steel tube with a sharp end. You set it on the mark and hit it. Weaver sells its round drive punch from 2 mm to 13 mm, says it is meant to be struck with a mallet or maul, and says side clearance in the tube helps throw the punched plugs out so it does not clog. Montana’s guide describes the same thing from the other end: the little leather circles stack up inside the tube and push out the back.
The tool is simple. What it asks for is a bench. In a Leatherworker.net thread about a belt hole punch that would not cut, Lobo says a solid work surface is required, and that he punches on a plastic cutting board sitting on a concrete floor, because the plastic stops the punch without hurting its edge. He drives it with a rawhide maul or a hard plastic mallet, which will not mushroom the shaft. In another thread, on punching with weak hands, TwinOaks gives the reason: you want a soft face to protect the edge and real mass under it, because a flimsy table just bounces and eats the blow.
That is the honest cost of a drive punch. Not the steel. The setup. A cutting board, a maul, a floor or a block of granite, and noise your neighbors will learn to recognize.
Why I’d put a drive punch through a bridle strap
Thickness ends the argument before precision even gets a vote.
My straps are double-lined in bridle leather. When I want a strap with a good face on both sides, I split two pieces thin and stitch them together. Either way it is thick, firm, waxy leather, and a lot more than five ounces of it.
That is where a rotary punch quits. In the weak hands thread, benlilly1 says his rotary punch hurts his hands and “doesn’t want to punch through thicker leather,” so he went to a mallet and a single punch. TwinOaks, in the same thread, says punches with interchangeable tips are really only for very thin leather or vinyl. And Weaver’s own guide to leatherworking tools points to oval drive punches, not a revolving punch, for the adjustment holes on a heavy belt.
Then precision, and this part is my opinion. A rotary punch closes on a hinge, and the jaws hide part of the mark. With a drive punch you stand over the tube, see the mark under it, and hit straight down. On a strap where the holes have to land in a dead line, a hair to one side is a hair you will stare at for years. On a briefcase strap, that alone is worth the noise.
There are more holes in a strap than the ones for a buckle tongue, too. Weaver’s tools page shows an oblong punch being used to add a buckle to a strap, and lists English point and round strap end punches for shaping the tip. My buckles are hand-stitched, with no rivets, and my handles go on with Chicago screws. Every one of those is a hole, and every one goes through heavy leather. None of those punches comes on a wheel.
The site already has a piece on why the strap and buckle outlasted the zipper, and another on why solid brass hardware outlasts the leather around it. The holes are where the two meet. Punch them badly and the brass will be fine and the strap will not.
Laying out the row before either tool touches it
The punch only cuts where the mark tells it to.
Neither punch fixes a bad layout. The Art of Manliness piece puts standard belt spacing at 1 inch, center to center, and marks each spot with a ruler and a pen before anything gets cut. On a new strap the same rule holds, only you are setting the whole row instead of matching one.
A few habits from the forums make the row come out straight. In the anemic punch thread, Matt Alsaker punches the outer layer before the layers get glued, then drops the punch back into those holes afterward so it only has to cut the inner layer. That is worth knowing on a strap made of two pieces, because the face you see is the one that got the clean first cut. In the weak hands thread, J Hayes suggests a drill press with a fence, so every hole sits the same distance from the edge, and Catchndreams runs mallet-style punches in a tabletop drill press over a white cutting board.
Weaver’s page on punching belt ends pairs a scratch awl with a round strap end punch, a poundo board, a granite slab and a maul. That list says it all. The marking tool comes first, and it is the cheapest thing on it.
A dull punch loses either way
Most of the fight people blame on the tool is the edge.
Here is the part both camps skip. In a Leatherworker.net thread about a new oblong punch that would not punch, the poster could not get through 4 to 5 oz leather with a brand-new punch. Member after member said new punches often arrive dull. Bruce Johnson hones his to an edge, takes off the burr, and back-bevels it, then punches on an LDPE board, and he adds that end grain wood works too. With a sharp punch, he says, you should not have to bash it.
The same thread has the mallet warnings. Northmount says most rubber mallets are too soft and swallow the force. Electrathon is blunter: those punches are not made for a steel hammer. Rickybobby uses a heavy rawhide maul on a bench built so it does not flex under the blow, and that bench matters as much as the maul.
The rotary side has the same lesson. In the weak hands thread, WyomingSlick says the sharper the punch, the easier it is, suggests rubbing the tube in beeswax, and says you can rest a revolving punch on the bench and lean on the top handle for more force.
So before buying the other tool, look at the edge on the one you have. A dull drive punch on a cheap board and a rubber mallet is not a drive punch. It is a way to dent leather.
Where the rotary punch beats me
A belt that already exists does not need a bench, a maul and a floor.
Now the turn.
Everything above assumes you are at a bench, building a strap from a bend, with a maul in reach. Most holes punched in this world are not that. Somebody lost weight. The belt is finished, stitched, dyed, years old, and it needs one more hole.
The Art of Manliness piece on how to make a new hole in a leather belt calls the rotary punch “perhaps the simplest and most straightforward solution.” It suggests the number 5 tube, notes standard spacing of 1 inch center to center, and marks the spot with a ruler and a pen. It lists a 3/16 inch round drive punch and a mallet as the other clean way, and a drill with a 3/16 bit as a third.
Think about that job with a drive punch. You need the board, the maul, the floor, and you need to hold a curved, broken-in belt flat enough to hit straight. With a rotary you sit at a kitchen table, line up the tube, and squeeze. My guess is that plenty of dress belts sit close to that 4 to 5 oz rating anyway. The precision problem shrinks when the job is one hole matched to a row that already exists, because the row tells you exactly where it goes.
There is a quieter point, too. Six sizes on a wheel is six punches you did not have to buy, sort and sharpen, and for someone who punches a hole twice a year that matters more than anything I said about straps.
So the rotary punch loses on my bench and wins in a kitchen drawer. I’d still keep the drive punches. And if you only own one tool and only ever fix your own belts, the belt care piece will do you more good than either one.
OWDEN 9 Pieces Leather Hollow Punch Set: A nine-piece hollow punch set for round holes. See it on Amazon (affiliate link).
WUTA Rawhide Mallet: A rawhide-head mallet for striking chisels and punches. See it on Amazon (affiliate link).
Farberware 12 x 18 Inch Reversible Plastic Cutting Board: A reversible plastic cutting board, 12 by 18 inches, usable as a cheap cutting surface under a knife. See it on Amazon (affiliate link).
Weaver Leather Supply Silent Poundo Board: A self-repairing poundo board for punching and stamping. See it on Amazon (affiliate link).
Beesworks Yellow Beeswax Bars, 6 oz: Yellow beeswax bars, 6 oz, for waxing thread. See it on Amazon (affiliate link).
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. A commission may be earned if you buy through this link, at no extra cost to you.
Sources
- Tandy Leather, Craftool Economy Rotary Hole Punch: https://tandyleather.com/products/economy-rotary-leather-punch
- Weaver Leather Supply, Heavy-Duty Compound Action Revolving Punch: https://weaverleathersupply.com/products/heritage-compound-action-revolving-punch
- Weaver Leather Supply, Weaver Round Drive Punch: https://www.weaverleathersupply.com/products/weaver-round-drive-punch
- Weaver Leather Supply, Your Guide to Leather Working Tools: https://www.weaverleathersupply.com/pages/leather-working-tools
- Montana Leather Company, How to Properly Punch Holes in Your Leather: https://www.montanaleather.com/how-to-properly-punch-holes-in-your-leather/
- The Art of Manliness, How to Make a New Hole in a Leather Belt: https://www.artofmanliness.com/skills/manly-know-how/how-to-make-a-new-hole-in-a-leather-belt/
- Leatherworker.net, Punching holes with weak hands: https://leatherworker.net/forum/topic/46169-punching-holes-with-weak-hands
- Leatherworker.net, My belt hole punch is anemic: https://leatherworker.net/forum/topic/43033-my-belt-hole-punch-is-anemic
- Leatherworker.net, New oblong punch not punching: https://leatherworker.net/forum/topic/36751-new-oblong-punch-not-punching
- Weaver Leather Supply, Easily Punch Leather Belt Ends With the Right Tools: https://www.weaverleathersupply.com/collections/easily-punch-leather-belt-ends-with-the-right-tools
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