Dremel

dazza36

dazza36

Lord
So over the last year or so I've been slowly converting and painting some lovely BOOD dwarfs. This has involved a lot of cut fingers from using a scalpel blade to remove unwanted metal. I'm hoping to get my hands on another batch and have been thinking of a better way to remove the metal and have been looking at Dremels or cheaper alternatives but have no idea if they would work . So I'm hoping someone here would have some first hand use and be able to let me know if its a starter or not.
 
I use Dremels extensively in my job (restoring old motorbikes) so I have a bunch of them and the heads around. The main issue I have with them is that if you're using things like sanding/grinding heads, the soft lead clogs them up almost immediately rendering them useless, Same goes with plastics, it gets hot, melts onto the tool and it's useless. Cutting discs work better, but even with the smallest disc (about 20mm), they're a bit large to get right into areas you want to cut without causing collateral damage. TBH, about the only thing I use one for, miniatures wise, is to make holes to pin large miniatures.
 
Cheers Dieselmonkey

I decided to buy a much cheaper version and see how that goes. I need to work something out as I cannot convert another 60 models with a scalpel blade !!! So if anyone has a good idea I'm all ears
 
I'd suggest picking up some small metal grinding burrs for it. they work a bit better than the hard stone type grinding tools.

This sort of thing:

714r6sMYGzL._AC_SY355_.jpg


but obviously small enough to fit the dremel, I think that pic is some larger ones, but you get the idea.
 
Turned up today and given it a test, luckily came with a few grinding tools for me to try out.

Its not perfect as on a few occasions the tool would jump and hit parts I didn't want to remove but with some practice I was able to remove a good amount of metal in the fraction of the time compared to using a scalpel blade. So for under £20 its a win.
 
Go slow with any rotary tool when carving details. the two dremels and the cheap knock off I have all have variable speed on them. While it's tempting to go full speed and do it quickly, that's where the skipping happens. If you can cut a pilot groove first to put the grinding part in, that can help as well. Just like if you're drilling a hole, knocking a guide hole in first helps a lot.
 
So thanks to Ebay I've got I've got myself a few Jewellery Burrs and couldn't be happier with the results.

I use a 2.5mm to start with and then when I need to be more accurate I move down to a 1mm. In total I've spent less than £30 on the Rotary tool and the burrs and it has reduced the time needed to convert my dwarfs from probably a day of cutting to a few minutes so well worth the money.
 
dazza36":3lo51exz said:
So thanks to Ebay I've got I've got myself a few Jewellery Burrs and couldn't be happier with the results.

I use a 2.5mm to start with and then when I need to be more accurate I move down to a 1mm. In total I've spent less than £30 on the Rotary tool and the burrs and it has reduced the time needed to convert my dwarfs from probably a day of cutting to a few minutes so well worth the money.
Click to expand...

If you get on with it and find it useful, I'd definitely suggest getting a 'real' dremel. The increase in torque and speed you get over a cheap one is noticeable and makes using them even easier.
 
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