I found this swaging punch on Klein’s website, and it got me wondering just what swaging was. It turns out that swaging is changing the diameter of tubing by forcing it into a die — so swaging is somewhat like flaring. After you swage the tubing, you usually mate it with a fitting, then crimp or solder it. Although swaging can be a hot or cold process, you’ll probably want to use this swaging punch cold.
To make their swaging punch, Klein precisely machines high-alloy steel then heat-treats it to make it strong and durable. The stepped design of their swaging punch allows it to swage six sizes of tubing: 3/16″, 1/4″, 5/16″, 3/8″, 1/2″, and 5/8″ OD. If the punch gets stuck after you drive it into the tubing, you can turn the hex head with a wrench to help extract it.
If swaging is in your future, this tool will set you back about $20.
Klein [Corporate Site]
Street Pricing [Google Products]
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5 Responses to What The Heck Is A Swaging Punch?
Leave a Reply to fred Cancel reply
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There are hammer-driven flaring, swaging and re-rounding tools that can be used with soft copper, EMT etc. For better results we use swaging or flaring blocks to back these up
Re- rounding helps solve issues with compression fittings – here is a link.
http://www.pollardwater.com/pages_product/R06081rerounders.asp
For even better results you should use a swaging bar and vise like those made by Imperial-Eastman (now Stride)
http://www.toolsource.com/flarepro-fourinone-flaring-swaging-tool-p-97162.html?sourceid=froogle
Or a more modest set:
http://www.drillspot.com/products/76345/Imperial_275-FS_Flaring_Swaging_Tool
Mastercool makes a hydraulic swaging tool set:
http://www.hvactool.com/catalog.php3?hcategory=18&hsubcat=80&hpagenum=1&hproductid=71600
With the correctly annealed (grade) of tubing – a swaged bell-end will accept a like piece of tubing for making up a sweat fitting.
Sorry for the redundant post – updates seem a bit slow.
Neat idea for a tool, but I really like the Mastercool version better. Seems like it would be more consistent.
Re eschoendorff Says:
Any of the vesions that use dies (Imperial Eastman, Rothenberger, Mastercool et.) will produce more consistent results – as you note.
I’ve also used an alignment punch for this.