I wanted a dremel drill...

[The3rd Earl Of Derby]

but not at dremels prices so I bought the aldi one for £15 it ain't too bad for the price.

-- Sir Benjamin Middlethwaite

[EricP]

Hope you got a couple of the accessory boxes as well. Had one since last year and very good value.

[The3rd Earl Of Derby]

Yes I'll get one of those after xmas,they had quite a huge amount of those. The CC has been moving a bit fast this past week the plastic has melted. :-)

-- Sir Benjamin Middlethwaite

[Lawrence Milbourn]

I was given a dremel as a birthday present and I got quite excited. I am sure it is going to be really useful, but what will I use it for?

- Lawrence Nottingham, UK

[Ron Clark]

On Fri, 23 Dec 2005 19:54:39 -0000, "Lawrence Milbourn" wrote this (or the missive included this):

[Frank Erskine]

Or even drilling teeth. Get some Isopon for doing the subsequent fillings.

[keith_765]

I use one for cutting model 00 gauge rail track and drilling track pin holes

[Bob Martin]

There are things a Dremel will do that nothing else will do. You'll know when the need arises!

I can go months without getting mine out of the box then suddenly it's a life-saver.

[Mike Dodd]

Seconded...

Like when I was trying to remove the fan on the boiler to replace with new. One of the stainless steel screws was completely seized, ended up rounding the head, so tried drilling it out - no drills hard enough for stainles steel (go figure?!), ended up using a cutting disk in the dremel (well, Performance-Pro look-alike) to grind the head off.

Amazing tools for the 1% of the time that you need them.

[Ian Stirling]

What it can be handy for. High speed is more appropriate for small drills. Makes it easy to drill hundreds of pilot holes, while being significantly lighter than many other options, which can be handy in awkward locations.

Generally, it's very handy for finishing operations, rather than bulk material removal.

However.

In many cases, because of the samll size, and possibility to get into awkward corners, you can avoid the difficulties of doing things the conventional way.

For example - rather than using a chisel to tidy up rough edges in a square hole, the dremel can be used to do this, with a carbide burr on the end.

It may not be faster - but there is no risk of splintering, no shocks while it's being done, and may well be easier with poor access.

In general, there are few tasks that the dremel is the best tool to use, if the bit of the workpiece that you want to get to is easily accessible, and easy to put on the bench. If it's not, and you'd like to save time by not dissasembling somehting before working on it, then the dremel may be hugely quicker.

There are exceptions to the 'no big jobs' rul, for example the sanding drums can be very, very effective on mouldings with caked-on-paint.

[The3rd Earl Of Derby]

Like when you need to cut a copper pipe under the floorboards which is inacessible with a pipe cutter or hacksaw, :-)

-- Sir Benjamin Middlethwaite

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Not sure how a dremel will help there - it's larger than both.

[The3rd Earl Of Derby]

Heh!

-- Sir Benjamin Middlethwaite

[The3rd Earl Of Derby]

Dave Plowman (News) wrote: [snip]

Visualise this...

10.30 this morning I got a phonecall from a friend who asked me could I repair for a leak in a rad pipe for his brother, no problem I says. On getting there he told me he'd been laying laminate flooring and the floorboard near the wall was a bit raised so hammered a couple of nails in to get it level, silly sod had also hammered a nail in the center of the FB which went straight through the rad pipe. Had the nail just gone through the top of the pipe then a half piece of copper pipe would had sufficed and soldered on to the pipe, but the nail went straight through top & bottom.

Now with the pipes being so close to the wall there was no chance of an hacksaw or cutter as the pipe was the nearest one to wall with the return close to the feed? so this is where the dremel came in handy. :-)

-- Sir Benjamin Middlethwaite

[Chris Bacon]

I thought I ought to have something like that, so I too bought one from Aldi, the one with the flexible shaft drive, and a box of bits to go with the ones already in it. Like Mr. Milbourn, I can't think of a use for it, but at the price it may come in for something... dunno what though. The pipe example above means the tube must be less than 15mm from something, else a cutter would do the job.... what else could they be used for?

[Bob Eager]

It *was* a 15mm pipe, but hard up against something....hence the Dremel.

I last used mine for cutting back laths where they crossed a stud...I was boarding part of a wall, and for complicated reasons (it had been part boarded by someone else) I needed to cut the laths off as described. The Dremel did it well, and fast.

[The3rd Earl Of Derby]

How about cutting akward shapes on standard wall tiles ie a square cut on one corner, say half inch which you couldn't cut on a tile cutter? Or cut a oblong/square opening in light metal or aluminium or even perspex. How about using it to sharpen chisels/blades thay have had a slight chunk taken out of them cos you hit a nail in the joist. How about polishing a scratched lense on me spectacles :-( The price was right and it was worth it. :-)

-- Sir Benjamin Middlethwaite

[Chris Bacon]

Um, "abrafile" typr tile saw held in a coping saw frame works wery well.

Drill/coping saw....

!!!!!

Bench grinder/(stone or wet'n'dry).

Bad luck.... I haven't fallen over *once* this Christmas. Only another 8 (? What day is it?) days to go.....

I tend to agree, although I haven't the faintest idea when/what for I'll use it. I will carefully go downstairs now and open the box, and look at the thing.

I wasn't trying to pooh-pooh your ideas above, merely to mention that I'm not sure what I might use this thing for. I wonder whether it's got a chuck, or a collet. Might be (perhaps) useful for porting, or engraving glass...

Any other ideas? I need a work creation scheme (and a drop more stuff)...

[The3rd Earl Of Derby]

You sound like my Mother(God rest her soul), It would take ages to build the bridge and she'd come along and blow it up. :-) It is basically an engravers tool.

-- Sir Benjamin Middlethwaite

[Dave Plowman (News)]

You can do that easily with a wet diamond wheel tile cutter. And rather more safely.

Since it will need filing square you might as well just drill a few holes.

Most would use a bench grinder for this or a coarse stone - it would be difficult to get a straight edge with a dremel.

And altering the power? ;-)