Eyelets stick to eyelet tool

[angryhippie]

I am wiring up a bunch of frames and I am having problems when I hammer the eyelets into my frames. About 50% of the time I pull the eyelet back out on the eyelet tool and have to struggle to pull it back off, as if it has been a little compressed. Does anyone else have this problem, and how to you avoid/deal with it? This is starting to become very time consuming to have to stop and get it back off the tool.

[KPeacock]

I've neer used eyelits in frames, but I've set a lot of grommets and eyelets in otehr materials.

one of two things is the problem, either your setting punch is a bit too big, or the eyelits are a bit too small...which can be caused by them compressing a bit when installed. So, solution is to sand down the setting punch a bit, or lubricate it a bit so it doesn't bind so bad. You might try rubbing a bit of beeswax on the punch and see if that helps keep it from sticking.

Like I said, I've never used these, so I'm just tossing out ideas. I hope they work for you, but if not...well, I told you i didn't know what i was talking about

[BeeCurious]

I think the hammer is the problem. Just press the eyelets in place. I used the end of an old broom pole as a handle / holder for the tool.

I just press and twist the tool. No hammering required...

[Andrew Dewey]

I used to hammer in eyelets using the special tool, and on occasion the eyelets would pull out when I removed the tool. I think the problem was that the eyelets never seated themselves in the wood - either the hole was too big or for whatever reason the eyelet fastened itself on the punch instead. Twisting the punch seemed to help. But I solved the problem by going to plastic foundation and giving up wiring frames - so I didn't need to use eyelets any more.

[Hormel]

I had the same issue. I ended up filing the punch down a little, worked great since. I set the eyelet with one tap with the hammer.

[Michael Palmer]

We just finished wiring 2500 deeps and 2500 mating nuc frames. All with eyelets. None stick.

I find hitting the punch twice with a hammer works best. Once to insert the eyelet, and once to seat it. Are you seating the eyelet so it's below the wood surface? If you are, file down the tip of the punch.

[angryhippie]

Thanks for all the advice. I am seating the eyelet into the wood with 2 taps of the hammer. Sounds like the tool might be just a little too big. Maybe I'll try filing it down just a bit and see if I get better results.

[Goat Man]

throw the tool away and get an ice pick. works great. just load a bunch of eyelets on the pick and push them in. if they don' seat them squeeze them in further with a channel lock plyers. works for me...

[jrbbees]

Put the tool in a drill and the take a file. Start the drill spinning a file it dow alittle real fast.

[Ravenseye]

I had that problem too when I used eyelets. I tried pushing them in by hand but that little eyelet tool started to hurt after a while. Many frames had punched holes which were barely big enough for the eyelet. I did what jrbbees did and that was to file the point down a little so it wouldn't seat itself inside the eyelet.

[angryhippie]

I stuck the eyelet tool in the drill and ground it down with a file a little. Tried it out yesterday and it worked great. Threw together about 10 frames and only had about 1 eyelet stick and come back out. Thanks for the advice guys.