Eyelet punch machine

01 · MECHANISM

It punches cold; it is not a drill

Despite the name, nothing rotates here. The two levers are long on purpose: they multiply hand force onto a bar of needles that comes straight down and goes through the side bar. No bit, no shavings and no power supply, so you can assemble frames in the apiary shed. Each needle is held by two nuts on a slotted bar: you loosen it, move it and tighten it again without stripping the machine down, and for the same reason it can be replaced on its own once the point goes.

02 · SETTING UP

The rail is 31 cm; the spacing is your call

The punches slide freely along a 31 cm rail. On Langstroth and Dadant the usual choice is four holes per side bar, but you can fit as many as you want and at whatever spacing you want: more wire runs for combs that will face long spins, fewer if you would rather tension quickly. What pays off is not the single hole — it is that frame number two hundred comes out with its holes where the first one had them, which is why every wire ends up at the same tension. It also comes with an adapter for full-depth brood frames (1/1).

03 · EYELETS

Measure the barrel before the first batch

Hole and eyelet have to match. The brass eyelets we sell by the kilo have a 2.90 mm barrel, roughly 6,500 units per kilo, and that is the standard size of side bars that come factory-drilled. Brass does not rust and leaves no mark on the comb. If you use a different eyelet, measure it first: a thicker one will not go into the hole and a thinner one shifts as soon as you tension the wire.

04 · BEFORE YOU BUY

This is 5 kg of painted steel: a bench machine, worked sitting down and in batches. That is where it belongs. Anyone assembling frames fifty at a time sets the punches once and leaves them; anyone assembling twenty a year makes the same hole with a lever awl. And before anything else, check two things on your frame: that the wiring is horizontal and that the side bar is no longer than 31 cm.