Ah the ubiquitous Dremel rotary mini moto-tool, what can be better? Lots actually! In this Instructable I will give plenty of examples. The case often can be made that you can do small jobs easily with large tools but rarely is the reverse true. And if Dremels are one thing they're small. But not so small that they always help one out completing a task where clearance is an issue. Two other things that Dremels seem to run in short supply of are power and durability.
I've had more than one Dremel get up and go on me when the going got tough. But in all fairness they're hardly the only tool that has ever quit on me. Later I will introduce a tool that most reasonably expect to only last about a year in regular usage. But oh what a year it can be!
So without further ado let us meet our cast of Dremel replacement tools. Somewhere in this cast of characters is likely the tool you wish you were using. Then we will delve into each in turn.
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This is truly where high speed rotary action is at! Lets face facts things that go fast tend to heat up in the process. These are all naturally air cooled devices. They have high speed, often times plenty of power, but stall out gracefully if overloaded.
From the top left we have a right angle die grinder with a sanding belt attachment, another right angle die grinder with a collet and knotted wire brush chucked, an inline die grinder, and a tool Dremels can only pretend to be. That'd be an ultra high speed pneumatic rotary tool. In this case an IR-e HFS 100 made in Sweden and conservatively rated at 80,000 RPM. This puppy sounds like a jet getting ready to take off when it is fired up!
I know what you're thinking, but I need compressed air to use these. Well of course you need compressed air. We *ALL* need compressed air! So get it! I remember when I got my first air compressor I was like why aren't there air chucks in houses like there are electrical outlets? I feel the same way today.
The CP inline die grinder in the middle will stall out gracefully but at 1 horsepower rating it'll take your hand halfway around the work right before it does, in the blink of an eye no less. lets just say that when it stops I'm pretty happy that it did, but it doesn't stop for much.
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If you know about electric motors most can be made to reverse if you put another DPDT switch in them. There are usually 4 wires inside them, and if you transpose one pair versus the other the motor will run the other way around.
Although for what a Foredom tool usually costs (mine is an older model) I'm not about to open mine up to try it out. I got lucky and bought mine along with quite a few bits at a yard sale for $20. But I don't think I will find another at that price! Plus the way it rotates does not bother me.
I live in an apartment, and don't have much free space. Certainly not enough to have a devoted work bench and tool rack to store all the tools you suggest in this article. Also, my husband and I end up moving every year or two. Moving a bunch of power tools instead of just my dremel would be a hassle.
Plus, I'm not trying to, well, build a chicken coop. :) And I don't do any one power tool task consistently enough to need a tool specifically devoted to that task. For me, a much better option is one tool that can do a lot of different tasks.
It took me two more U-Haul truck loads, plus a van trip just about every other week over the course of 4 years to move all of my junk. Who says you can't take it all with you?
So the sheer mass of an extensive tool collection can be a negative. I just had to have a hernia operation done which I believe was related to moving too. There is indeed a price to pay for DIY.
SFPM = PI X DIA. X RPM / 12
SFPM = Surface Feet Per Minute
PI = 3.1415927...
DIA. = DIAmeter of your bit in inches
RPM = Revolutions Per Minute your spindle is going
12 = inches in a foot
This formula is derived from the previous one and is a more direct way to calculate RPM for a specific diameter bit:
RPM = SFPM X (( 12 / PI ) / DIA. )
You always know your DIA. and target SFPM, and need to calculate for RPM so with the second formula you don't have to keep guessing your RPM then calculating it to see if you have it right.
50 SFPM works in the range of 1/4" - 1/2" for mild steel. Larger and smaller decrease, or increase speed some for optimal results. Harder steels the target SFPM is 15-30 but you feed heavier so you do not work harden the material you are drilling. This is where very powerful machinery comes into play that can push harder without stalling.
On your drill press if you're not just about stalling it out you're probably not pushing hard enough. It is likely you don't have the speed range to work with steel correctly too. Get pulley formulas and add another step pulley to your press to gear it down some more. Heck, calculate what you're running now, machine speed charts can be wrong. But I'll let you look up how to properly calculate pulley ratio speeds because that is more involved than I want to get here.
My mill goes down to 220 RPM which if you do the math nets me ~57 SFPM with a 1" drill. A little fast, but it'd work for mild steel.
Using the right cooling lubricant, and drill bits can go a long way towards extending your machining capabilities too, when everything else is correct. Speed you run is likely the most critical factor though. Some of the right speed is machine dependent, so try different speeds and record your results until you've narrowed down your best speed to run at. Power, resonance and some other nonsense all adds up to specific machine behavior.
This stuff is an exact science, but there are so many variables on some level it is somewhat of an art too. Most folks don't know even as much as I've described here though, so if you didn't then this will be a huge help to you. If you did, then maybe it'll help someone else out.
Who said drilling was boring?
Anyway, I can attest to the Dremel tool not being adequate for some jobs. I used to know a lady who used them for sanding, cutting, and drilling unfired pottery (bisqueware), and she regularly burned them out! (Maybe pneumatic tools would have been better for that.) I like my Dremel for small, arts-and-crafts type jobs, but for major drilling I have to go with an old Black & Decker 7190 that I got for nothing through Freecycle. I don't know why the guy was getting rid of it, as it is awesome! I even got it to drill into the rock-hard, 100-year-old plaster on the walls of my old apartment. I was afraid I'd have to buy a hammer drill for that, or maybe dynamite.
Now the name Dremel is sort of like the name Kleenex anymore, I use it interchangeably for any small high speed electric motorized rotary tool, as do many others. That being said the whole class of tools has their uses, and limitations.
So I figured I would highlight some other power tools that can excel working on more than just balsa wood models. I don't want to say Dremels are bad for what they are, but maybe they're bad for say trying to grind down weld beads etc.
For what a Dremel can cost I could have bought a drill and an angle grinder and gotten more done back in the day. But maybe I failed to make that point with my article.
Nice score on the drill on FreeCycle. Dremels are especially bad at drilling all but the smallest diameter holes. They spin larger bits far too quickly and that burns the drill bits up. Where I am at anything worth anything on FreeCycle is gone before it gets posted here it seems. I tried to get an old PC on it once and it was gone!
Then when there is a problem pneumatic motors stall a lot more gracefully than electric ones do. When a pneumatic motor stalls all it'll do is hiss. Electric motors keep on trying to pull out of a stall and might even catch on fire if left held for too long.
All of that having been said I am pretty much done buying pneumatic tools now. I guess there's a few more I wouldn't mind having but there are more electric tools I want more today.
or would the flexshaft for the rotozip do
have you any other suggestions to do this
any advice would be appreciated
Let me just say that unless you eat your spinach you might not be able to adjust it so easily. Forget about up and down stairs too!
As for other advise make it in cardboard first but do not glue the thicknesses of the plywood together then cut your cardboard model all apart to use for templates on your plywood. It is the only way you stand even a remote chance of this working out for you.
Talk about a nightmare sheet plan! The absolute no brainer way would take you 32 sheets of 3/4" ply to make just the chair ball. I'm sure you can get that down a little. If you didn't hollow out the chair it'd weigh around 990 pounds!
You'd better really want this chair if you're going to actually make it.
my inital idea was to put a dremel on the end of the arm with the disc cutter but i dont think that the disc could cut the circle without breaking (or would it )
what is your opinion on just having two rotozips as the cutting blades (eventhough they would have the same problem) with the inside as the jigasw
i had planned to cut the plywood into strips and taking a straight line from the centre point and marking it and cutting it from that angle. there wouldnt be as much big pieces of waste and that many sheets needed.
the size isnt really an issue as it could be taken apart because i would be just screwing the layers together.
I made this all out of plywood and cut it all out using a jigsaw:
http://i.imgur.com/ZDSVM.jpg
It sort of remotely resembles your sphere sections kind of, just spread out a lot more. That project pretty much burnt up an entire sheet of plywood except for some worthless odd shaped scraps left over. It is a French Flower Stand by the way.
So I do have some limited experience cutting out arcs in plywood using a jigsaw. You're just going to have to cut out a lot more.
If you do go with that jig setup like you saw in that other article I imagine you're going to have to make one a lot more rigid to work with plywood. Being as plywood is a lot more rigid than cardboard is.
As clever as that rig may be I think it is just exploiting cardboard's inherent weakness as the secret of its success. Plywood doesn't have that problem. You may end up learning all about tool chatter in your adventure. It is something harder materials make weaker setups do. And no it is not a good thing.
how would you intend to get all the angles right with a jigsaw and to have a relatively matching surface . how would it be marked out.
how would you think the dremel setup i mentioned would fare with the jig do you think or have any experience of the circular cutting blade warping or bending . do you think the dremel would work with the jig .
do you think this disc would cut circles since it can cut in every direction it seems to me like an angle grinder disc for wood have you any experience of it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9h5zePVP-ak&feature=related
does a foredom have a circular cutting disc that could be used the same way
if i was to use a dremel i would have to use 1/4 inch plywood
if i made the jig out of steel would it really make that much difference
One thing you may consider to boost your air compressor capacity is to either gang up air compressors, or just add another storage bottle to yours. I made a fitting out of a pipe tee with two males, and a chuck on it, so I can plug stuff like that together. Works great if I have to work more than a hose length away too, just put a bottle at the end of one hose and run another. I don't lose pressure then.
My compressor can't keep up with really intensive use, like running a 6" DA sander steadily, or sand blasting, then I hook a gas powered compressor to the system to pick up the slack.
Plastic is like Kryptonite to a Dremel. Or rather more like water to the wicked witch of the North. I'm melting! Other than having lots of tools to do jobs with besides a Dremel, stuff I put in this Instructable were just representative examples of groups, my other trick is I have two moto-tools now. So I can rest one periodically in the course of working with them. Sort of a spread out the abuse strategy. So far so good! How can I afford to do this one might ask? I bought a couple B&D RTX moto-tools dirt cheap on closeout special. I've had top of the line Dremels these are at least as good in my opinion.
I have just a flexible shaft, but I don't think it is really designed for super high speeds or anything like that. Honestly I never use that thing it just sort of hangs around my garage and gets in the way. One of those tools you know? Oh, I'll use that someday ... yeah but in which life?
I agree with you on a few things. However, there's no arguing that a Dremel is a useful tool to have.
I'm a tool guy, I love them in every shape, form and size, and more often than not, I find myself reaching out to grab my old Dremel (now 10 years old, and trust you me, she's had a LOT of use over the years) just because it would save time... they only thing that could fit in that space.....etc
One interesting thing to note from your article, you seem to go through a lot of tools? I'm not saying that you misuse or abuse them, but I'm the type who believes if you look after your tools - heck any machine for that matter - it could potentially outlast you :-)
All in all, informative and stylish (your own style that is) :-)
Many thanks for sharing your thoughts with the rest of us.
Peace out brother :-b
I weld so small angle grinders don't put up with grinding down weld beads for too long. At least they don't for anyone else I've ever met that uses them regularly. Typical lifespan on them is about a year as I stated. One a seal went and it started spitting grease out all over the place, another one the angle gear in it cracked, and it lost some teeth. Others I've never investigated all too closely, but switches break or windings burn out or just the dust wastes the bearings in them.
The little angle grinders just work too hard for how ruggedly they can be built. I accept it and don't worry about it. At $15-$30 a piece they're consumables to me. Now I have found that the 7/9" I have is a lot more durable than any of the little angle grinders I've ever had. But it also only runs a little better than half the speed of those poor little things do too.
Tools are like a lot of things double one thing and quadruple another. Like double size and quadruple life.
I make a habit of cleaning my tools, dusting ..etc after every use, and I try and schedule routine maintenance - sad, I know - at least once every six months, especially the electrical ones.
I'm a firm believer in buying good (not necessarily expensive, I try and take advantage of offers ... ) tools and keeping them in tip top condition.
One thing to add, not everybody can have access to an air compressor for example, or you can't use one because you can't afford one / don't know how to use one ...etc.
A very useful source I found is the recycle centre, I've rescued a couple of really good drills a few weeks ago, one needed a new power cable (was torn at the area where cable meets body of drill), the other needed new brushes ...nothing beats free ;-)
Again, very nice instructable and hope to see more from you in the future.
Years ago all power tools were expensive. Today there's cheap and expensive ones. A lot of today's expensive power tools are pretty nice. If an old power tool is still around and working it is probably an extra good one. So there are a few factors that make your "myth" appear valid.
I buy a lot of tools used and give them the once over when I get them. Usually they're screwed up, broken power cords is a popular issue I see. In the picture the big angle grinder I got for $5, the Rotozip $5 the Porter Cable Router $5 ultra high speed air grinder $10 (I've the case for it as well) the Milwaukee cordless drill I got for free at a garage sale, I asked, lady said oh that pile is garbage, so I took it. It came with the case and charger. I did have to rebuild the battery pack for it though. I got a brand new Sears 14.4V battery pack for $5 at a thrift store and swapped the cells out of it.
My air compressor I paid the big bucks for, $50! It has a 30 gallon ASME tank. In the years I've had it I've put a new head and motor on it. I'm due for another head now. I got a 5 HP WEG brand motor for it now and could easily run a two stage pump. I paid $20 for that motor at a flea market. When I looked that motor up similar go for around $500.
Where I'm at now there is no recycle center and even if there was no one here can afford to leave anything of value. I went to a flea market earlier and asked about a Makita angle grinder, thing looked beat to death, guy still wanted $20 for it so I passed. I also saw a Milwaukee Hole Hawg with a frayed power cord, other than that looked good. That guy wanted $50 so I walked. If he said $20 I'd have done it. Not that I need another drill but some stuff well ... Hole Hawgs are one of those things to me. They're epic.
In season I'll travel somewhere else to do some acquiring. Same place where where I got that Milwaukee for free and other good stuff too.
I have a brush collection from fried motors. I trim them down for other motors that need brushes.
Thanks for the compliment. I've another Instructable planned I just have to write it up. Going to do the last power supply I built. Too many ATX conversions on this site. Mine is a custom built infinitely adjustable current and voltage 10 amp linear. There are some pictures in my image library of it already (just don't get confused with the dual out one). I was going to do some stepper drivers I made for the Robot contest but I think they're too much of parts to enter. Destined for a CNC machine anyways so not exactly a robot.