How To Tighten Up A Sloppy Second Hand Dremel

One problem with Dremel tools is that they don't always age gracefully, after a number of years of service they can develop a lot of lateral play in the spindle. Since the majority of uses for a Dremel place a side load on the spindle, it deforms the bearing mounts over time, I'll show you a quick trick to tighten them back up.

This Dremel I picked up at a garage sale had almost 1/16 of an inch of visible lateral play before.

Step 1: Crack it open

Pretty simple, unscrew the annulus behind the collet and remove the four T15 screws. Pull apart the two case halves, remove the spindle/armature, and it's as apart as it needs to be.

Comments

[James186]

Thanks so much TUA.
I've just done this to my dremel and it is now very smooth and sounds healthy.
(It was very noisy - in 1st speed it was noisier than it is now in full speed)

[b0bb0]

TUA,

I just bought a "good condition" used Dremel 395 online, and when I turned it on it sounded horrible. My wife, said, "That sounds terrible! You aren't going to keep it, are you?" I mumbled something to her and thought, bad bearings. I was pissed.

On my search for where to get bearings and how to replace them, I ran across your fix. Mine sure had more play than I could blame on bearings. Based on the "cost" of your fix, I gave it a shot on the front bearing only since the rear one seemed OK.

Five minutes later the thing sounds brand new! You saved me a WHOLE lot of trouble! Thanks!

BTW, the bearings seem to be in great shape. I wonder how many of these things got thrown out over the years for lack of a piece of masking tape.

b0bb0

[morbius42076]

I use a flex shaft to carve a lot of stone and wood materials. I've already gone through two of them this year. Do you know where I can get bearings for them or how to replace them? the flex shaft is a little expensive, and I'm sick of replacing the whole thing.

[sensoryhouse]

By far the best selection of power tool replacement parts on the web.

http://www.ereplacementparts.com/

I order from them all the time.

[kricketone]

This is great !!!! thanks for shareing the link I live one block from a recycling center and the aways have things ti sale real cheap thanks to you I got a place to get parts thank you,,,

[Tool Using Animal]

I've no idea how to remove them, but if you can get them out and measure with calipers mcmasters carr is a great source for almost any sized bearing

[sharlston]

add  a bit of grease the bearings when u put it toether

[eric m]

Always wanted to know what the insides looke like of the dremel. couldn't find anything on google images. ignore below. Inside Dremel. Inside a dremel. Repair dremel. Repair a dremel. Disassembled Dremel. Disassembled Dremel. Disassembled Dremel.

[bobbyrae]

I have a Dremel 395 that looks identical to yours and was just today thinking about checking it for runout before getting into doing PCBs. What luck that I ran across your Instructable! It is so simple that I didn't think it could help, but grabbed the thing, checked the end play, pulled it apart, did just what you said and the end play was gone! Turned out that the front bearing was REALLY loose in the housing. The bad news: I think the shaft is slightly bent since I still have some runout. Some? Maybe I should say tons! The longer the bit the worse it gets; maybe .020". Probably happened from all those years of just using it with the loose bearing! So now maybe I will buy a Proxxon for the PCB work...

[galaxyman7]

Awesome instructable. I use a Black and Decker RTX dremel tool, and even brand new it had a lot of spindle play. I use it for a CNC machine, so the dremel play really makes a lot of difference. If you want to make a new housing for the bearing, you should check out my instructable on sulpho-plastic. It is a very hard, metallic plastic that is super easy to mold and very cheap. It would probably work great for this.

[Mario1]

hahaha in bulgaria you can buy 1'st hand dremel for 15$

[Derin]

ohh man

[Tool Using Animal]

I've fail to understand why someone who's response is for "$X you can buy Y" would post at a DIY site.

[sensoryhouse]

No kidding. Lets through away a perfectly good tool so we can buy a new one.

[dsandds2003]

The best Dremels I ever owned said made in Racine Wisconsin. They went downhill after that.

[dbarak]

Interesting timing. Although I didn't have this particular problem with my Dremel, I had to disassemble it just today. I'm still not sure what the problem was, but it ran fine once I put it back together.

[Prometheus]

You likely had dirty brushes. A good connection was made because you disturbed a faulty electrical connection. If your dremel won't start for any reason, try giving the shaft a spin and see what happens. half the time it is an overly-oxidized commutator segment. Be sure to, when using these tools, to give it some no-load time often. Never start a dremel tool under load, and let it run full speed without a load every so often to cool the motor. A Dremel was meant as a "grazing" tool, not a "burrowing" tool. Keep it cool and it will last you a long time. Don't treat it like a portable drill, treat the motor more like a band-saw or a radial saw.

[Prometheus]

As an owner of a clone (after Dremel was bought out by Sears), this does work quite well. My tool is over 6 years old with over 17,000 hours of use, and due to lack of precision balance of the rotor, the bearings do rotate in the case. Using this method is best even before you have this problem, to mitigate the wear on the case itself from migration of the bearings. I might add that making a dust-seal between the annulus and the tool is an adviseable modification. I made one to keep the metallic dust I tended to create with this tool out of the bearings, and it works. The material I used was some HDPE plastic I cut from my stock of "soda-bottle plastic". A future instructable project is coming that may help you keep that tool running for another two decades more, by me. Look for it as it will be relevant to almost all power tools and domestic/commercial vacuums.

[john917v]

Nice, good Instr! What I like most about this, is the low-$ approach! I can't get enough of that!

[GorillazMiko]

Great job, could help a lot of people, thanks for adding it into Tool Tips.
I wish I had a Dremel/ Rotary tool.
Maybe I have one?
Made one?

_{Instructable coming soon.}

[berserk]

That's a neat thing to keep in mind. I bought a Dremel instead of a knock-off because they have bearings rather than bushings. Interesting to see that the bearings aren't what is wearing out, but the case.

[!Andrew_Modder!]

huh. basicly realign it. Mine is a really good conditioned one, so its really in good shape. but if i need to later in its lifetime i will realign it lol.