Dremel Question For Anybody That Uses One

[Spinner]

For what it's worth, I've been eye balling the dremel 4000 that comes with the flex shaft. Reading reviews from hardcore Dremel users it seems to be fairly reliable and worth the money.

I DO NOT recommend a portable/battery operated model. I can't say enough bad things about them and I've been stupid enough to try several.

The 4000 is what I have in the shop and have used for many years to do some serious wood carving with (mass removal) and now burnishing and metal polishing.

Don't know what they changed on it but it can take a heck of a beating.

The real answer here s SFPM. Evrybody gets caught up in RPMs. Regadless of what you are running the RPMs are constant at the shak, the center of the tool to the edge of the tool. What changes are the Surface Feet Per Minute. So, a burnisher should be looked this way. If I have 3/8" diameter burnisher and run it on my drill press and get a great finish at 1800 RPM, then I want to run it in my Dremael. At what speed do I run it? Answer? 1800 RPM. If the diameter doesnt change, neiither does the RPM.

You're correct and that's where the difference lies. The inner race of the dremel burnishers is only about 1/4" - 3/8" diameter whereas the the drill burnishers have an inner race of nearly an inch.

In theory that means that the dremels should perform the same at about 4.5k rpms (vs. 1100) but oddly enough, the reality is they need a bit more speed. Not sure what the physics behind why that is, just know from experience.

Woodturners have to worry about SFPM quite a bit as the machines read-out shows RPMs at the spindle diameter but it's a whole different story when chucking up a 16" diameter bowl blank. Or, my craziest project, a 14" square (19" diagonal) x 4" thick blank for a solid walnut sink basin.

Damn think was sending a serious cross breeze through the shop when it was spinning!

I don't believe a dremel tool will run with rpms this slow,

The new Dremel 4000 series that Cyber mentioned is able to maintain it's peak torque performance down to about 1500 rpm, below that it drops incrementally.

The older models would start to lose torque around 3-4k so they've definitely made an improvement there.

[Chavez]

Thanks!

How do dremels compare to cheaper (say, draper or silverline) and more expensive (proxxon) alternatives? Never owned a dremel, so don't really know what to look for.

It looks like there are only dremel 300 and 4000 for sale nowadays. 300 is half the price of 4000 and 4000 costs the same as a proxxon.

Proxxons seem to have much better reviews than dremels 4000 and seem to be more reliable, but as I said I know nothing about these tools=(

Would you recommend sticking to dremel or get something else? If I understand correctly, its just a question of reliability cause all accessories are interchangeable and they all do 5k-20k rpm.

Thans again!