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10 Jun 2025
; "Roper-Whitney 218 Punch Press Restoration")
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This is a mid-70s Roper-Whitney 218 Punch Press I restored. In 1977 I worked at Noakes Data in Irving Texas and this punch was in the back of the shop. We used it to make custom sheet metal front panels.
Later in the mid-80s they went out of business and had an auction where I bought this. It was used in my shop at Arrick Computer Products then for Arrick Robotics, and finally Synthesizers.com.
When Synthesizers.com moved they left this behind and I was asked to do final building clean-out. In the process I got this punch back and restored it for use in my home shop.
It takes a strong dolly to move this heavy machine. The punch alone without the cabinet weighs about 150#.
After getting it disassembled and sanding it down, I sprayed it with an etching primer then with a blue Rust-oleum high-performance enamel rattle can. Some of the parts were small and got sand-blasted. The name-plates were saved and reinstalled as-is.
Somehow the entire set of punches survived the years and didn't get separated from it.
; "Roper-Whitney 218 Punch Press")
; "Roper-Whitney 218 Punch Press")
; "Roper-Whitney 218 Punch Press")
; "Roper-Whitney 218 Punch Press")
; "Roper-Whitney 218 Punch Press")
; "Roper-Whitney 218 Punch Press")
; "Roper-Whitney 218 Punch Press")
; "Roper-Whitney 218 Punch Press")
; "Roper-Whitney 218 Punch Press")
; "Roper-Whitney 218 Punch Press")
; "Roper-Whitney 218 Punch Press")
; "Roper-Whitney 218 Punch Press")
; "Roper-Whitney 218 Punch Press")
; "Roper-Whitney 218 Punch Press")