Dremel type tools

I have one of the Proxxon drills (mine is mains powered but they also do low-voltage ones similar to the Dremel). Nicely engineered tool & runs relatively quietly, compared with a similar B&D unit I have that is not nearly as solidly built & makes a helluva racket.

Regards, Tony

Hi Russell,

I bought a Minicraft drill a couple of years ago and the chuck was rubbish. It kept loosening off while using it, and it was hardly surprising when you studied it closely. I managed to buy a chuck via eBay and now I can use it.

Of course they may have fixed things since then.

Steve

snipped-for-privacy@abcdef.co.uksaid

About 12 months ago I thought I needed a 'miniature' drill so researched the Dremel range along with the 'cheap' offerings on eBay.

To 'test the water' I was happy to go the eBay route and if it turned out to be useless put up with the £8 loss.

First test were 'OK' but once I wanted to actually _use_ the thing I was aware that not only was it without any torque and would stop at even the pressure of it's own weight but the 'slop' in the bearings (are there any fitted?) exceeded the collet diameter!!

Last week I re-visited the Dremel research but finished up buying a Proxxon MF70 MicroMill - close to £200 but exactly what I need - and I don't have to spend time making (or buying) 'attachments' for a Dremel that would still be a hand held item.

JG

I've been through two cheap clones, the motor died in one and the 'speed' controller kept overheating in the other. Both had poor chucks and noticeable runout, so they kept breaking small (

Take a look at the Micro Mill from Chester, Arc Euro, Warco and others. Digital depth read-out, very sturdy, surprisingly accurate, and reasonably priced.

At work someone was daft enough to buy a Dremel and it's stand in order to drill PCBs, well the stand is absolute plastic crap, the lever action binds terribly no matter how you try to lubricate it so you can't apply a smooth pressure, and it moves horizontally by millimetres as you try to feed the drill in so you just snap off fine drills. If you try to hand hold it for grinding etc you realise just how bulky and unbalanced it is since it's a mains motor, but it does actually manage to do some work.

At home I use an unbranded one I got from one of the big sheds for all my model making and it fits beautifully in the hand as it has a smaller, lighter and more powerful DC motor with a separate transformer. For drilling PCB's I use one of those £25 1/2" bench drills you can get form the same place, not great for larger model engineering needs but infinitely better than the Dremel drill stand. And as for the price of Dremel tooling well that's obscene, you can pick up the same quality, or rather lack of it, from market stalls for £1 a box.

In short, Dremel is a classic case of all the money going on the marketing not the product.

Greg

I bought a couple of these for use at work a while ago. They got some serious intensive use for a week or so and seemed to cope OK. They are sold in B&Q for £30, so the price is pretty good.

Gentlemen,

I use one I bought from Halfords, it does exactly what I want and does not stall under heavy load when grinding etc.It has a variable speed control which slows the revs not the torque and is mains powered.

Just out of interest, what is your planned use for this? metal, plastic, wood etc and what sort of thickness can it deal with?

(I was considering one of these for "amateur" small-scale metal work, but I'm not sure it's up to the job)

Pete

Peter Lynch said

Initially for watch dials.

See my site :

. . . . and specifically the 'projects' page and the 'Big Date' . . . I'm adding to it as I progress.

The materials, up to now, have only been hardwood-veneers (0.6mm thick) and plastics but I do have in mind Copper and Nickle-Silver. I've only used 1mm, 0.5mm and 0.3mm bits yet and these have all been ground as drills rather than slot-cutters but at a comfortable feed-rate I have 'slot-cut' 2.25mm x 3mm rectangular holes for date windows with no problem whatever.

This week-end I am making a 'vice' to sit on top of a 3" rotary table that will hold 1mm x 0.5mm Nickle-Silver which needs to be reduced to

I'll post another picture of the whole set-up once complete.

At the same time I bought a 50 piece carbide bit set which are regrinds after Silicon-Valley have finished with them. Various sizes from 0.27mm to 4mm (all on 3.2mm shank) with a preponderance between 0.27 and 1.0mm. One downside - I had broken two 0.3mm bits before I had turned the machine on !! :((

JG

Very nice!

I did wonder if it was a variation on the Billy Connolly "Big Slipper" ;-)

Duncan Munro said

Thanks.

That must be the one Billy Connolly sketch I missed !

JG

JG,

Interesting website with some nice pieces, I also liked the clock that follows the mouse around especially as it keeps perfect time.

Martin P

I had the very same problem with the 220 workstation and complained. I had the following very nice e-mail from Dremel:

"Office Dremel (RT/DRE)" Thank you for your e-mail. We are very sorry that you are not satisfied with our Workstation. We know that there have been some issues regarding the stability of the head assembly of the workstation, and that is why we made a better and improved version.

If you would be so kind to provise us with your address details, we will gladly send you an improved head assembly, free of charge.

Met vriendelijke groet, kind regards,

Jolanda Fouwels Sales & Divisional Assistant

They did send the new design head assembly and it is a vast improvement - service with a smile! Mike

Thanks Mike, I'll try that when I get back to work after my holiday.

Greg

I bought the Machinemart tool - not used it for real precision work, but comes with useful accessories, like a flexible drive. Haven't got a stand to mount it on so no way of testing runout

Greg wrote:

Thanks for all the replies and advice - this has been a lot of help.

To sum up by brand

Proxxon 2 votes Machine mart 1 vote Halfords 1 vote B and Q 1 vote Unbranded 1 vote (not really sure this fits in a summary by brand) Dremel 0 votes (nett) B&D -1 vote Minicraft -1 vote - I think they've gone bust anyway

That shows a clear winner (but probably not a statistically significant sample) and Proxxon seem to have a suitable drill at a reasonable price.

Thanks again

Russell

JG said

Photo and drawing now on the 'Big Date' page.

Took rather longer than it ought since I scrapped the first attempt through incorrectly working out how far to wind the vertical slide down and not checking the cutter position before taking the cut ! Such basic errors I should be ashamed :(

JG