Originally posted by Zordana
At the moment it\'s not knowing how to use my dremel to remove large chunks of metal from a miniature.
Zordana-
This is hard stuff to articulate in text, but over time I\'ve gotten pretty good at removing chunks, so I\'ll try and help-
My first rule is work small. This seems obvious, but I still have to remind myself of it. If you are trying to remove a detail like a holster or pouch or something, pick a bit that is far smaller than the detail, so you can work on little bits at a time- especially important when you are working next to bits that you don\'t want to mangle.
Bit selection- use small bits. I find the most useful to be the small round bit, which is like the head of a pin in diameter. And the conical bit, which comes to a sharp point.
Also, I keep my old bits when they\'ve worn out. If you have a really sharp new ball bit, and eventually you melt it a little from working to much metal, keep it! When you get the majority of your work done and need to get some really small spot, use the one with almost no texture, you can burnish the small irregularities out, and polish the metal into to be seemless with the rest of the mini.
High Speed! you really have to watch yourself, and take it slow so as to not melt the bits, but the higher speeds on your dremel 1- give the whole tool more gyroscopic stability in your hand 2- get cleaner abrassions- they whip the metal away very fast, and in small pieces, which leaves a smoother finish. I find that a continuous and methodical high speed (of the tool, not your strokes with it) approach leads to much less bit-bite, tossing your bit across the mini.
Use a scriber or awl to push a small hole into the metal to give you somewhere to start the bit, rather than just smooth metal- again, this helps reduce biting and the tool jumping wildly.
If you need to remove really big pieces, the larger ball bit, and the really deep toothed cylandrical bits are good. Be careful of the deeptooth though- rough edges, more likely to bite etc. You\'llneed to follow it up with a finer bit to smooth things. The cutting disks work good for removing integral bases, and for making things flush for conversions. I routinely will have a figure stand both feet on the disc after cutting off a tab or integrated base, this assures that they are both not only flat and smooth but on the same plane, so you dont get one foot which has its edge showing reared up from the base.
Use pliers. grooveless round-nose pliers are good if you need to grab somewhere on the figure without damaging it. With the harder metals being pretty common these days, you have to worry a lot less about damaging them, but still be carefull. I keep strips of old t-shirts near buy if its really delicate work. Wrap these around the pliers and then grab the miniature with them. You can work longer and steadier if don\'t have to worry about heat transmitting throigh the miniature to your fingers.
I don\'t know if this is helpful or not, but I hope so.
If there is a more specific application or project you had in mind, let me know. . .if I have any ideas for it, I\'ll toss them out there.
