Rotary tool

General Composites Discussions Equipment Talk
#1

Greetings,

Since I’m new here, I’ll start by introducing myself. My name is Frederik, I’m nearly 23 years old and live in Belgium. I only got the most basic of experience in composite manufactering but I’m eager to learn. My goal is to be able to create various composite materials like car parts and bike parts mainly. That being said, I’ve done alot of research but still some questions remain.

  1. What is the best rotary tool to buy?
    I’ve used the search function where many people state that a Dremel is pretty useless when working with Carbon fibre, due to dust entering the brushes. So my question is, are there any air powered tools of semi-professional quality, some members mentioned Harbor Freight but I got questions about the quality. I prefer Hitachi, Dewalt, Hilti or Makita quality (power drills etc) but I do not know comparable brand names in handtools.
    I’ve also googled for jet cutter tools, but can’t seem to find any results…

  2. What is the quality of Chinese bulk suppliers?
    I’ve came across many Chinese manufacters of carbon cloth producing around 300,000 Squaremeters monthly. They require a big minimum order but that’s not really a problem for me. Anyone has recommendations ?

Those are actually my main concerns for now, I hope some people can inform me on those 2 parts, thanks in advance.

#2

I would not completely dismiss the idea of rotary tools, I use a cheap Dremel-type tool(Aldi £19.99) It came with a 1m extension head lead, I always use this as it keeps the cutting away from the actual unit and I always blow the unit thru with compressed air once finished. Not had any problems so far.

#3

any pneumatic tool will work well. Quality will vary, you get what you pay for. You will want an abrasive cutting wheel to cut with.

#4

I have a dotco and a cp in my tool box. The dotco 90 and the cp were both bought years ago and still work just fine. The dotco was around 300 usd and the cp was right about 20 bux.

I find alot of the tools harbor freight sells like paint guns and air tools work very well.

Their electric power tools on the other hand are garbage.

#5

Welcome koelcast,

About point 2: be careful in choosing chinese material. Most carbon fiber fabrics suffer of bad quality in weaving, then large voids between warp end weft; that means resin rich areas.
In some cases, poor fiber sizing caused the resin not to grasp to tows, and you could remove the fiber from resin by hand !!

Chinese products and Taiwan products are not the same, although Taiwan is China, but Taiwanese manufacturers offers a better quality than generic and cheaper chinese counterpart.
Of course the choice of material depends from its final use; for primary structural parts I strongly suggest to avoid chinese material.

#6

Hi Mr. Fridge,

Welcome to the forum.

For working with carbon I recommend air powered tools. If you are up for a good deal, check www.buitelaar.nl. This is Hollands “Harbour Freight” and they are about to move to another building. Their complete stock has to go. they have quite some nice air powered tools, and compressors.

#7

i use an air powered pencil grinder for cutting carbon. i use a diamond cut wheel on it.

#8

Thanks for the feedback everybody, I just ordered a Proxxon Micromot IB/E and a flexible shaft.I went for the IB version because it has more power and users find it more solid.
However, I’m still gonna look out for a good 2nd hand compressor and will buy some Air powered tools then, since they provide higher torque.

I’ll tell you my opinion about it once it arrives.

Cheers,

Koelkast

#9

You’ll now need some cutting discs etc… try http://www.permagrit.com/index.php

They are excellent!

#10

I use the following and they work very well…

Dremel rotery tool w/ 1" and 2" dremel diamond cutting blades. Dremel = $70, 1" blade = $10, 2" blade = $20.

Dremel multimax w/ fine saw blade for carbon and coarse for molds. Blades are around $20 - $30 a piece. Multimax is roughly $150

Cordless low and high powered reciprocating saws. Roughly $250 each. Diamond saw blades = $20 a piece. Those last a very long time.

Mini circular saw by makita for molds. It has a 3" blade and its cordless.

3" cut off blade. The tool was $15 bucks from harbor freight. Abrasive disks (pack of 15) was $5 at harbor freight. Those do alright at 90psi. Not as good as the multimax. But it depends on what you are cutting and how thick. I personally find diamond tools wear out very quickly when cutting fiberglass.

Hope this helps :).