This thing works great! I haven't tried thicker than 1/4" steel, but it punches a 3/4" hole in it with ease. I have 2 minor complaints, but I want to stress that this is a great tool and a good value.First, the nut to lock the top die on always comes loose. The system to tighten it should be reengineered to allow it to be made tighter.Second, the dies have sloppy tolerances. On the dies I use the most, I use their bottom dies but made my own top ones with much tighter tolerances--not only does it work better, but with tighter dies you can use it to punch out disc blanks for jewelry. I hope this company sees this and offers flat bottom precise dies to punch out disc blanks for jewelry in the future.