Starrett Automatic Center Punch with Adjustable Stroke - 125mm Length, 14mm Diameter Tapered Point û 18A

The quality of this tool is awesome. I fully believe this punch will last the rest of my life and when my daughter gets it, probably the rest of her life. Ive had many automatic punches made in China and all are garbage. Now I can give all those away. I just wish I had purchased this to begin with.

I end up snapping this thing 6-7 times on corrugated 24 gauge metal sheeting on my metal building. It does the job and feels well made, but just wish it had a bit more mass to leave a better impression in the metal.

It is well made

Some time ago, I bought a General Tools automatic center punch &I was always disappointed with it. It was always very hard to push to get it to trigger, no matter how I adjusted it. Also, the tip would always loosen with each punch. But the worse thing is no matter how I had it adjusted, & no matter how carefully I pushed down, When it triggered, the tip ALWAYS jumped off the cross scratch about a 64th of an inch. No good for any precision work. With this Starrett punch I dont have ANY of these problems. The mark is not quite as deep as my old one, but if the job requires a big deep mark, I just put a regular center punch in the little dimple & use a hammer to make it deeper. After putting up with my old General for too long, Im a happy camper now.

Being a Starrett product it is first class materials and workmanship. I like the hex cap…keeps it from rolling around.

Buen material

I dont do a lot of metalworking, but sometimes I need to mark to drill a hole. All I had were a couple of old hammer driven punches, and every time I used them, the tips flattened out. So I ordered a Starrett 18C from a nonAmazon source. I got it quick, and it was new, but when I tried it, it would hardly ever reset without unscrewing all the parts and screwing back together. I didnt want to go through the hassle of returning it. I got on the Starrett website and using their contact form, I told them the problem and sent a copy of my receipt. After a couple of attempts, I had not received a response from them. I finally called and spoke to a nice lady. She did some searching and found that someone had responded by email, and that they were sending a replacement spring. She suggested checking spam in my email. The response was not there either, but the spring did arrive in my mailbox. After installing it, it resets every time! So I am happy with my 18C.

Ive used this tool for two years now. Its still in like new condition. I was using it at work today and a coworker was admiring it. He had me order one for him.

I purchased this to center punch a bunch of holes to be drilled in melamine for cabinets I built. I had a cheaper punch that I purchased from Home Depot about 10 years ago that worked pretty good, but it started to fail. I purchased this one and it is considerably more expensive then the brass one I had, but it is much smoother and much better quality. It definitely works great in wood and melamine.

Sure you can get a less expensive one handed auto center punch. I have had a few. Sometimes the tips dull and aren’t as hard as they should be, or won’t dent that harder steel. This one will & should last a long time. Treated like a fine tool should be it will still be doing it’s job after your gone. I am spending quite a bit of time & $$ upgrading many tools with pro level stuff. I’m not a pro but center punch used a lot. Even limited use tools, take this piece of wisdom from an old guy. Buy the good stuff. When you need it you need it and want it to work, not break.