What is the best way to punch out eyes when powder coating jigheads?  A thumb tack sucks.  Thanks for any tips

you may want to try this:

take little 1 square inch pieces of paper and roll them up and stick them in the eyes before you powder coat them. that way no paint will get in the eyes to begin with. when the powder coat has cured you just pull out the paper and you have a clean eye.

What is the best way to punch out eyes when powder coating jigheads? A thumb tack sucks. Thanks for any tips

A large safety pin maybe ?

I believe cabelas sells a small tool for this also.

I use my split ring pliers and then a finishing nail to smooth out the inside.

Have to watch out, it's easy to knock some paint of the nose with the pliers.

How are you keeping the paint out of the weedguard hole?

Take an old spinnerbait and use the hook to punch out the eyes - - works perfectly (needs to be a nice big hook).  

I have a special tool designed just for punching eyelets out, but the spinnerbait hook works just as well.  

http://www.basspro.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?storeId=10151&catalogId=10001&langId=-1&partNumber=29673&hvarTarget=search&cmCat=SearchResults

I just use the tool that was made for this.

Allen

I use a very small drill bit and a dremel and drill out the ones I have to clean or a jig eye tool like what munkin posted

Harshman