Here is a situation every shop dreads: a punch gets dropped right when a rush order has to ship. On top of that, the punch has female threads with a custom pitch, so a quick way to put an edge back on it was the only realistic option. The maker pulled it off with an improvised sharpening arrangement built around a mini vertical mill, and by all accounts the result beat expectations.
The assembly itself is what caught my attention. A drill chuck went onto the vertical spindle and was spun at high speed, with a piece of threaded rod held in it. Washers were used to level everything over the chuck jaws, which seems like a clever bit of improvisation to me. For the cutting action, a countersink did the work, apparently the only flat sharp edge on hand at the time. That cutter is a conical, faceted metal component with a brass base band, and it reads as a decent stand-in for a dedicated grinding setup.
The maker is upfront that the whole thing was sketchy, yet it worked better than planned. I respect the attitude in the response to the doubters too: a professional makes do with the tools available, though a lathe and a proper cutting tool would have been the preferred route.
One thing remains open. An adapter is planned to hold the punch in a collet for next time, which sounds like the right fix going forward.