134.  Punching iron plate for boilers.  The steel punch used for this purpose is from three-eighths to three-quarters of an inch in diameter, and drives out a circular disk from a plate of iron from one-quarter to five eighths of an inch thick.

135.  Punching tinned iron.  The ornamental patterns of open work which decorate the tinned and japanned wares in general use, are rarely punched by the workman who makes them.  In London the art of punching out these patterns in screw-presses is carried on as a separate trade; and large quantities of sheet tin are thus perforated for cullenders, wine-strainers, borders of waiters, and other similar purposes.  The perfection and the precision to which the art has been carried are remarkable.  Sheets of copper, too, are punched with small holes about the hundredth of an inch in diameter, in such multitudes that more of the sheet metal is removed than remains behind; and plates of tin have been perforated with above three thousand holes in each square inch.

136.  The inlaid plates of brass and rosewood, called buhl work, which ornament our furniture, are, in some instances, formed by punching; but in this case, both the parts cut out, and those which remain, are in many cases employed.  In the remaining illustrations of the art of copying by punching, the part made use of is that which is punched out.

137.  Cards for guns.  The substitution of a circular disk of thin card instead of paper, for retaining in its place the charge of a fowling-piece, is attended with considerable advantage.  It would, however, be of little avail, unless an easy method was contrived of producing an unlimited number of cards, each exactly fitting the bore of the barrel.  The small steel tool used for this purpose cuts out innumerable circles similar to its cutting end, each of which precisely fills the barrel for which it was designed.

138.  Ornaments of gilt paper.  The golden stars, leaves, and other devices, sold in shops for the purpose of ornamenting articles made of paper and pasteboard, and other fancy works, are cut by punches of various forms out of sheets of gilt paper.

139.  Steel chains.  The chain used in connecting the mainspring and fusee in watches and clocks, is composed of small pieces of sheet steel, and it is of great importance that each of these pieces should be of exactly the same size.  The links are of two sorts; one of them consisting of a single oblong piece of steel with two holes in it, and the other formed by connecting two of the same pieces of steel, placed parallel to each other, and at a small distance apart, by two rivets.  The two kinds of links occur alternately in the chain:  each end of the single pieces being placed between the ends of two others, and connected with them by a rivet passing through all three.  If the rivet holes in the pieces for the double links are not precisely at equal distances, the chain will not be straight, and will, consequently, be unfit for its purpose.