Anyone use a dremel ....?

[Frustrated Father]

Well, yesterday was my birthday (yay) and amongst the clothes and other tidbits, I got a real treasure of a gift - a dremel, quite well stocked and then on top of that, all sorts of expansions for the damn thing.

I am anxious to get my hands on it now for this weekend, cleaning up mold lines, drilling my pin holes, taking off the base \'bar\' (thingy holding the feet of the minis ... no clue what its called) and then of course doing wooden bases and the like (the things rather spectactular on what it can do ... now to see what \'I\' can do .. hehe).

Anyone else use one of these?

 

[kittykat23uk]

Yeah I regularly use a minicraft hobby drill (its similar to a dremel). Its a Godsend for drilling and pinning, though I normally clean up any mold lines by hand..

 

[donga666]

Originally posted by kittykat23uk
Yeah I regularly use a minicraft hobby drill (its similar to a dremel). Its a Godsend for drilling and pinning, though I normally clean up any mold lines by hand..

Thats the same as my use, the cutting disks are very good but very fragile and very messy (I would recommend a mask, otherwose its black snot/bogies:|~).

The grinding wheels are very good as well! remove unwanted detail in seconds

 

[minimaker]

The \"thingy\" is called a tab.

I\'m using a proxxon which is a German equivalent. I do moldline removal and most of my drilling by hand since I prefer more control though sometimes I will use some dentists grinders for detailed finishing work. I also use cutters (dentist and modeller\'s) for heavier jobs like removing larger parts of a figure.
I mostly use my powertool for toolmaking and sculpting.

A safety warning:
when using grinders it\'s best to use safety glasses and a dust mask. The glasses since you do risk bits of metal being slung in your eyes. This is really important when you use those black cutting disks since those can break up during use and be flung around the room.

Tip: in some cases it can be usefull to put your tool in a clamp or something so you can bring the part to the tool instead of the other way around. This can work more precise.

 

[donga666]

Originally posted by minimaker
Tip: in some cases it can be usefull to put your tool in a clamp or something so you can bring the part to the tool instead of the other way around. This can work more precise.

OOPS! Forgot that! Always (as Minimaker said) clamp your mini! It makes it more accurate, but more importantly SAFER!! You can fling a mini (or part of) quite a distance and with some force (images of miniature embedded into spouse\'s head, JOKE!!).

I have a modelmaking desk vise, which is one of the most useful tools I own!

 

[praetorian0_1]

I love that dremmel- so much in fact I wnet ot and got a real 4\" grinder with cut off blades for terrain sized jobs- that baby cuts sheet metal like butter= muhahahaha.

 

[TAB Studio]

ditto

 

[supervike]

I have one..

But it scares the living bejeebus out of me...

I usually just drill the holes for pinning with a hand held pin vise.

I have used it on occasion, but it seems to have developed a taste for human blood, namely supervike flavored blood.

 

[t_haye2]

yup, I have a special type, imported from transylvania...it\'s great for conversions, if you forgive the tendency it has to drink my blood, gouge out pieces of flesh and make a general nuisance of itself...or am I just clumsy....

 

[Lurch]

Originally posted by donga666
OOPS! Forgot that! Always (as Minimaker said) clamp your mini! It makes it more accurate, but more importantly SAFER!! You can fling a mini (or part of) quite a distance and with some force (images of miniature embedded into spouse\'s head, JOKE!!).

Funny you should mention that. I was just working with my Dremmel last night to cut apart miniatures for a base. I held the miniature in one hand while cutting with the other...

I am looking at my thumb right now where the miniature flew out of my hand and the cutting wheel went down into my thumb about 1/4\". You know, those wheels dont seem to thick until you look at the canyon it carves into flesh... lol ??? :~( :|~

 

[Frustrated Father]

Heh, thanks for all the safety tips folks but I\'m ahead of ya\'ll on that one as I\'ve worked sheetmetal for years and I\'ve already carved my hands to peices and learned the uses of rawhide gloves, vices and facemasks - took blood and other bad bits missing to learn of course.

Anyhow, I\'m going to have some fun with it this weekend and see what I can do. Specially remove some troublesome tabs and with the huge amount of addons that I\'ve got with this thing I\'ll have to figure out some way to make it useful before my wife gets the bright idea of putting me to work around the house.

 

[Shawn R. L.]

I use a dremel ALOT. Wonderful tool but know it\'s place. I like it for big stuff only. It\'s strength is that it can remove ALOT of material quickly. With a mini that\'s not such a good thing. You can go THROUGH your mini quick as a wink. One thing I would not be without, and it\'s not that expensive is the \'cable attachment\'. It\'s a cable about the diameter of your finger with a chuck on one end and a coupling on the other end to attach to the head of the dremel. The end with the chuck is like holding a large pencil as opposed to holding the whole dremel, which is like holding a potato. I hang my dremel from the ceiling with the cable dangling down so that the hangar is taking up all the weight of the dremel and most of the weight of the cable. When you are working for a long time this can save sore muscles. Good luck.

 

[freakinacage]

hi, i\'m tim an i too have a dremel. thank you for your time.

ps have fun this weekend trying it out!! we expect to see photos of any injuries!

 

[Frustrated Father]

Originally posted by freakinacage
hi, i\'m tim an i too have a dremel. thank you for your time.

ps have fun this weekend trying it out!! we expect to see photos of any injuries!

(laughing)

Deal.

As of yet, I haven\'t been able to drag it out for some test work - wife has me cleaning house and family is coming over.

Grrr.

 

[ralfmetal]

dremel motors

hi, i use a dental hand motor very versatile with a large selection of burs available. but saftey first .... always with the saftey. cheers.

 

[praetorian0_1]

Carefull- we had a what\'s your worst injury thread going and some folk threw up. Then they told teacher what we were doing- they even called us sicklollol

 

[Shawn R. L.]

Worst injury?????????? I had a saw blade about 1 1/2 inches in diameter with teeth 1/8 th inch long going about 2-3 thousand RPM. I slipped and dropped the tool, but being the quick git that I am I caught it.............BY THE BLADE. Guess what????????? IT HURT!!!

 

[Dragonsreach]

Originally posted by t_haye2
yup, I have a special type, imported from transylvania...it\'s great for conversions, if you forgive the tendency it has to drink my blood, gouge out pieces of flesh and make a general nuisance of itself...or am I just clumsy....

No you\'re just clumsy dear.
Dremels are really fun tools, but used safely are even better.
But in the hands of a Dumbass even the Yellow Handled GW Pincers are Dangerous.
Yesterday, while helping out one of the local lads with a damaged figure and showing how Greenstuff properly, one of the other lads was about to throw away a ton of Spiky bits from Dark Eldar. So instead, he gives me the Sprues in exchange for a little help in glueing and fitting some Hellions together.
Rather than cart dead plastic home I opted to cut the sprues into smaller sections.
Not sure how but I managed to cut a nice deep slice into the pad of my left hand middle finger. (I\'m rather proud of the fact I didn\'t use any Anglo-Saxon vernacular phrases at the time. )
Felt a real Pillock for doing it as well! :]

 

[vincegamer]

Originally posted by minimaker
A safety warning:
when using grinders it\'s best to use safety glasses and a dust mask. The glasses since you do risk bits of metal being slung in your eyes. T

To expand on that - if you normally wear eye glasses, no matter how big they are, you still need to wear a mask or goggles.
Reason being those little bits of metal that come off are hot and I have an old pair of glasses that has little pits all over the front from hot metal bits melting the lenses where they touched.

 

[the_alleycat]

So i\'ll have to wear sun glasses then... lol Seriously though, looks cooler, reduces visibility, allows rebounding metal to hit me in the eye: definitely the way forward.

That and take up smoking - remember kids, it makes you look cool.