shims

It might help if you said what you were making them out of and how you were going about it. The answer will still probably be a hole punch though.

Clamp the shimstock VERY firmly between two thick metal plates and drill through the 'sandwich'

AWEM

the shimstock is brass.thankyou for your reply

Drilling thin stock is a waste of time - the drills just mess up the stock.

Make a hole punch.

Regards, Tony

Further to that. if there is more than one hole to make. drill the two thick plates so that pins can be inserted to keep them aligned. clamp as before and either drill or punch through with a bit of sharpened silver steel. sharpen the silver steel by holding it against a grinding wheel to give a concave end like a paper hole punch.

Mark Rand RTFM

You could try clamping it to a piece of wood with at least two toolmakers clamps and use an endmill to cut the hole. That's how I made my last lot,but they were out of 0.010" tinplate.I used my mill,doubt if you could feed fine enough with a drill press.

Allan

Well it should be pretty straightforward to make holes in brass that's only a few thou thick.

1) Make a punch. Take a bit of scrap heat-treatable steel. An old high tensile bolt will do. Turn the end to 1/4" and then make a sharp edge at the rim by drilling into the end with a bigger drill until it just reaches the circumference. You'll need to drill pretty concentric to get an even edge thickness. Using a centre drill will be a much better idea than a jobber drill. Heat the end to cherry red and quench it and you've got a poor man's hole punch.

You could then make a jig to use it with. A couple of bits of 1/2" steel or aluminium bolted together with a gap between them thick enough for your shim to be put into. Drill or ream a 1/4" hole right through in one op and that'll guide your holepunch through the top part, through the shim and into the clearance hole in the bottom part.

2) Clamp lots of shims together between two bits of scrap and drill through the lot.

Back it up with a lead sheet around an eight of an inch thick or so.