Esup(TM) Hole Punch Pliers Leather Review

I’ve thought about getting a hole punch for the belt for a while. I don’t need one all that often but every once in a while I have a leather belt or guitar strap that needs extra holes for better adjustment. Especially guitar straps where, like most players, I can be very particular. I like a shorter guitar strap for playing seated and almost all straps are way too long for this. Even if the strap doesn’t use a buckle to adjust height, the punch is really useful because you can punch holes to easily tie or sew your strap at the exact height, or make holes for plastic zip ties to go through and lock your strap at the correct height. Many straps also slip over time and get longer, even the good ones.

Packaging

The hole punch arrived in pretty typical retail packaging with the pliers sandwiched between vacuum-formed plastic and card backing. I was pleased that it was frustration free with the plastic folded around the card and not welded with plastic requiring heavy duty side cutters or a hobby knife to open safely.

The Pliers

The first thing I noticed was that they are quite large even for my fairly large man’s hands. I guess the extra length of the handle requires the large grip, but without the extra size the mechanical advantage would be lost making it a lot harder to exert the pressure to punch clean holes.

The handles look like hard plastic from a distance but are, in fact, rubber. They look chunky but this is partly becaue the tops taper off to allow the large, inner sprung hinge to articulate properly. The grips are actually very good, bolstered up front to prevent your hand sliding forwards and a nice rubber pin grip texture that makes sure it stays fixed in your hand.

It is sprung and has a metal retainer latch/loop to hold it closed when not in use. Heavy duty rivets are used on all the non-adjustable pivot areas while Philips machine screws are used in a couple of other places. A small triangular cross section screwdriver comes with the hole punch and is useful for adjusting the screws.

The adjustable punch has 6 heads that you can select from by rotating them around. A ratchet type mechanism locks the head in place so that it lines up with the brass disk it clamps against when punching. The six heads offer several size holes listed in millimeters.  The holes are of the following sizes:

2.0 mm  (5/64”)

2.5 mm  (3/32”)

3.0 mm (1/8”)

3.5 mm (9/64”)

4.0 mm (5/32”)

4.8mm (3/16”)

In Use

I did a quick test on a heavy duty belt I bought a while back. That belt is particularly thick with a second reinforced strip of leather over the holes. It’s almost ¼ inches thick. I was hoping it would work for the sake of the review. It sliced through the belt with ease and when I looked closely at the hole it was very clean and well defined. So I’d say this punch works very well if you have large enough hands with which to grip the handles. I’m pretty sure my wife would have little trouble punching a hole, though she might struggle with the grip.

Conclusion

The hole punch seems well made and works very well. Provided you have quite large hands, hardly any effort is required to punch holes in 1/4” thick belt leather. It comes with a small box with a spare brass disk and screwdriver. The box is shaped to fit between the handles and stay wedged there when you lock the handles together with the metal retainer loop. I provided photos to show what a good job it did punching a hole in my leather belt.