Shoutout to the old timer who showed me the coat hanger trick for lining up punch marks

Wade Reed · 2026-10-16T01:45:07.940966+00:00

I was drilling a set of 12 holes in a 3/8 inch plate last month and every single mark came out drifting about a sixteenth off. I tried center punching harder, I tried a fresh bit, nothing helped. An older guy named Dale who rents a bay down the row from me watched me cuss at it for maybe ten minutes and then handed me a wire coat hanger he'd cut and bent into a little L shape. He said lay the bent leg in the punch mark and sight down the straight part against the drill press column, and if the hanger looks crooked your mark is off. It sounds like nothing but it caught two marks I swore were dead on. I felt pretty dumb standing there holding a coat hanger I pulled out of my own scrap bin. Now I keep that hanger hanging off the press and I check every layout with it before the bit ever touches steel. What dumb simple thing did somebody hand you that ended up fixing a problem you'd been fighting for way too long?

Vivisector

Loading…

Shoutout to the old timer who showed me the coat hanger trick for lining up punch marks | Blacksmiths - Vivisector