On Sat, 17 Jul 2004 18:24:10 -0700, in hô Jack Schmidling wrote:



Good assumption. It's spelled Dremmel... Dremel?.

Just one M, if I recall, but the brand is unimportant. The tools are those
small, flashlight sized hand grinders, some with variable speed. Sears makes a
version, and there are numerous even cheaper copies out there. I mentioned the
brand name since many hardware stores seem to stock the various small cutters
and polishing attachments made for that brand. It's a slightly pricey way to
buy those small bits, cutters, and polishing tools, as they're a good deal
cheaper from the regular jewelry tools suppliers. but maybe not as handy for
picking up just a few to try next time your in town. You don't actually need
the tool to work with those brushes. you could even use them in a plain old
electric drill. It will be slower, though, and the size of the drill chuck
might get in the way. The pros would be using a fordom flex shaft, or similar
flexible shaft tool, rather than the small Dremel type grinders.



Went through the junk box, found the perfect motor and spent several hours,
designing, planning, milling, turning and came up with an adapter for the
flex tool.

Hung it over the bench where I am now futzing with jewelry, put in the
little buffing wheel, turned on the motor and the buffing wheel spun off and
rolled across the lab floor.

How long did it take you to figure out the problem?

I knew instantly.... the motor rotates the wrong way and as far as I know,
there is no way to reverse a brush motor. It is totally useless for
anything but the wire brush and grinding wheels.

Too bad the motor shaft doesn't extend from both sides of the motor (as do some
fan motors, for example. Then the solution is simple. Mount the shaft on the
other end of the motor.

Your solution is fun, but not the best one of the sort. Charles Lewton-Brains
wonderful little self published book, "cleap thrills in the tool shop", (which
he sells direct, and who you can find selling his books on ebay) describes
doing much the same thing with an old unwanted kitchen blender. That device
then gives him multiple speeds... Now, I've not seen the contraption, but I
sure like the concept.

By the way, your wrong direction shaft can still work with any mounted point,
buff, or the like which is sold permanently mounted, rather than with a screw
on mandrel. Many of the small brushes, and felt buffs are sold this way. Only
those screw ended mandrels, and steel cutters and drill bits are intrinsically
limited to only one directon of rotation. One can get, for example, a snap on
mandrel that accepts little sanding disks with a brass center hub having a
square opening that fits the snap on mandre. Available in a wide range of
grits and types. very useful, and turns in either direction just fine.

Also, "mr. machinist." you CAN get reverse threaded screws, taps and dies, and
the like, if you wish. you could make yourself a mandrel designed for the
reverse rotation direction, if you wanted. There might even be such a thing
out there already. For larger buffing motors, of course, tapered threaded
spindles are standard, so that one can use both sides of a buffing motor...

cheers

Peter.