# Getting the most from your Dremel



## mklotz (Oct 1, 2007)

The Dremel is a wonderful, versatile tool in the hobbyist's workshop.  While it's meant to be a hand-held tool, I often find it far more comfortable to bring the work to the tool rather than vice-versa.

To that end, I built this jig to hold the tool.







The plastic grip that clamps the Dremel was removed from a Dremel router attachment*.  Without modification, it was attached to a baseplate - thus it can be returned to the router jig when needed.  The baseplate has a 1/2" square aluminum 'backbone' which can be conveniently gripped in the bench vise when the tool is used.

Attached to the end of backbone is a small adjustable table.  In addition to sliding along the backbone, it can be adjusted in height and tilted to various angles.  The table has a slot milled into it into which various sliding accessories can fit. 

This (staged) shot shows how the jig mounts in a vise (small vise used for clarity - my bench vise was too messy for photography) and how the accesory table tilts.  Also, one of the sliding accessories is shown positioned on the tilting table.






Here are some of the accessories.  Bottom left is a cutoff guide.  For cutting small rod, tubing or screws, the workpiece is held against the aluminum fence and the adjustable depth stop with the bit to be cut off projecting to the left.  The whole assembly is then slid along the table guide groove into a cutoff disk mounted in the Dremel.  Makes very nice neat, well-contolled cuts.

Lower right is a sliding protractor table.  The protractor arm is settable to a variety of angles and locks in place with a small brass pin.  Angled cutoffs are possible with this although its primary use is, in concert with the table tilting, to produce compound angles on the 1/8" HSS specialty tool bits I grind for making obscure parts.






The jig shown at the top is a sanding table.  It attaches to the backbone as shown in the photo below,






and a sanding drum projects up through the hole.  When this is used, the backbone is held vertically in the vise and the plate through which the drum projects acts as a small table.  By using very small sanding drums, this arrangement can do a lot of the work one might more conventionally use a filing machine to achieve.
Shown in front is a bushing which reduces the diameter of the hole when smaller sanding drums are used.  (Too much clearance around the drum can cause tiny parts to go walk-about.)

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* Since I built this, Dremel has marketed an accesory that consists of a tool holder that fits into a universal ball joint base (similar to a Panavise base).
It may be easier to adapt this tool holder to the jig described above than use the holder from the router jig that I employed.  Incidentally, this new accesory is quite useful in its own right, especially so for freehand activities like deburring.


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## 1Kenny (Oct 1, 2007)

That is a neet little set-up.


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## tattoomike68 (Oct 1, 2007)

Thats nice, I just got a dremil tool and find holding it and the workpeice can be tricky. A unit like that could save me some blood and scars.


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## Cedge (Oct 1, 2007)

Marv
The more things you share, the more I look forward to seeing your name pop up on the list of new posts. I suspect a visit to your shop would be a real treat. Keep em coming... I, for one, find your tools, projects  and engines of great interest.

Steve


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## mklotz (Oct 2, 2007)

Steve,

Thanks for the kind words.  You're welcome to visit my shop, or, as it's known to me, Garaj Mahal, anytime you're in sunny SoCal.

In the meantime you can see a lot of my work at my project page on our club website:

http://www.schsm.com/html/marv_klotz.html

If anything there especially strikes your fancy, email me and I'll produce a writeup for the forum.


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## DICKEYBIRD (Oct 5, 2007)

mklotz said:
			
		

> Steve,
> 
> ...as it's known to me, Garaj Mahal...


 Dang!  I wish I'd' thought of that one.  What a great name!

Marv, do you have a pic showing a closeup of the tilting table mount?  I'm interested in how it slides up & down & clamps on the backbone.


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## mklotz (Oct 5, 2007)

I don't have a picture to hand but the first photo above shows the inelegant arrangement.

There's a slot in the table support/upright that's somewhat wider than the (1/2" square) backbone.  A tapped hole in the bottom end of the upright allows a thumbscrew to lock on the backbone to hold the table in place.

Vertical adjustment of the table is accomplished via various spacers placed in the oversized slot - one of the spacers is visible in the first photo.


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## DICKEYBIRD (Oct 5, 2007)

OK I see now Marv, thanks.

Man, with all your nifty jigs & home-made tools, you need to get some plaid shirts and do a PBS sries called "The New California Machine Shop" or "This Old Lathe."  I'd _pay_ to watch that show!


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## mklotz (Oct 5, 2007)

Sounds a plan.  After all, we're up to our ears in starlets out here.  Maybe I could get some Heather Locklear or Nicole Kidman look-alike to hand me tools while I natter on about their use.  I'm sure that my wife would be ok with that, he said uproariously.


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## Bolster (Jan 15, 2011)

I know this is a "vintage" thread, but I got to examine this jig in person today...as you examine it, it starts to dawn on you how useful it is. Think of the difference between a hand-held circular saw, and a table saw...being able to get precision cuts and grinds with a Dremel would be incredibly useful, when you essentially turn it into a "table" machine. I need to build one of these for myself. Would be the perfect tool for cutting screws to appropriate length. Very well thought out piece of kit, and entirely portable.


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## Sleazey (Jan 15, 2011)

Bolster, thanks for resurrecting this thread. I had never seen it before, and now that I have, I've copied it to my plans folder.

And of course, thanks to MKlotz for the original ideas!


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## Deanofid (Jan 16, 2011)

Gee, I missed this thread too. I suppose a lot of us who have joined since it was posted don't know of it. Very useful, and thanks Marv for another great batch of ideas. Would be worth building if only for cutting screws to length, but I can see a wad of uses for it.
 Thm:


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## Troutsqueezer (Jan 16, 2011)

Marv's got a ton of these little fixtures and doodads around the palace I've noticed. I'm hoping to finally get the free time I need to make some of these myself before too long.


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## metalmuncher (Jan 16, 2011)

Hi Marv, Thats a great little gizmo, set up at the right angles and with an endmill in a square holder you could sharpen or at least just tickle the edges up. Save a lot of time and money on building a tool and cutter grinder. Regards Metalmuncher.


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## mklotz (Jan 16, 2011)

Thanks for all the kind words, guys.

I'll just add one further nuance to the mix. If you stick the "backbone" of the jig in an unused toolholder for your QCT, you've got a good way to mount the Dremel on the lathe.

There's nothing sacred about my design. Use your ingenuity to extend it. As royalty payment, report your extensions/improvements of the design in this thread.


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## pete (Jan 16, 2011)

First time I've seen this thread too, Marv, You really should have sent your pictures to Dremel first. I'm really suprised somebody hasn't stolen this idea and started selling them commercially. Great accessory Marv, As usual.

Pete


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## modeng2000 (Jan 17, 2011)

Just to let you know Marv, I have ordered the Dremel holder that you used supplied as a spare part, not having the shaper/router table. The part number is 2 615 294 952 and it cost £7.57 including p&p and the dreaded vat.

Although you say this is not your idea, thanks for putting it on the forum.

John


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## d-m (Jan 21, 2011)

I also miss this thread and my dremel just sits there with nothing to do what a shame.
So Marv what wold it take from us to talk you into a little write up on this?
 ;D


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## mklotz (Jan 21, 2011)

d-m  said:
			
		

> So Marv what wold it take from us to talk you into a little write up on this?



?? I thought that's what I did in the first post in this thread.


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## d-m (Jan 21, 2011)

You did Marv
I was hoping for a few more shots and some words of wisdom on making the angle mechanism. I will blunder through it and ask you for advise if I run into a snag. As always with your fixtures quite functional and useful.
Dave


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## mklotz (Jan 21, 2011)

Dave,

There's nothing sacred in the design - no critical dimensions or materials. The design of the Dremel mount will depend on what sort of (Dremel) fixture you buy and the materials you have to hand.

After you have the tool mounted and have a "backbone" in place use your creativity in designing whatever sort of ancillary fixtures you need for the type of work you anticipate. After you have the basic structure in place, ideas for further attachments will occur to you as you use it.


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## mklotz (Jan 25, 2011)

Someone asked me for more details on the construction of this device so...







This pic shows the box that contained the Dremel router jig that donated the plastic holder that secures the Dremel motor tool to my attachment.






Here you can see the head of the carriage bolt that secured the plastic holder to the router jig.






The carriage bolt has been extended through the aluminum baseplate and "backbone" rail and secured with a nut. The backbone is further secured to the base plate with two socket head cap screws.






This view shows how the tilting accessory table is secured to the backbone. A removable spacer under the table clamp allows for two table heights because, when the table is tilted, the working end may be too high for the tool in the Dremel chuck and the table must be dropped. (There's clearly room for improvement in this aspect of the design.)






An alternate way to attach the Dremel is to remove the threaded plastic ring at the end of the tool. This reveals a section of 3/4-12 thread which allows one to make accessories such as the aluminum one shown into which the Dremel will thread securely. Think of a slab of aluminum so threaded and held in the QCTP to allow the Dremel to be used as a (desperation) tool post grinder.






Recently Dremel introduced the all-attitude tool holder shown here. It's a useful bit of kit in its own right but look closely and you'll see that the plastic tool holder is identical to the one I liberated from the router jig. If you can't find the router jig or you find this holder more useful, I'm certain you could use it to make my device.


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## Troutsqueezer (Jan 25, 2011)

That ancient TI scientific calculator you've got there still works huh? :big: I think that takes me back to my college days....


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## mklotz (Jan 25, 2011)

Troutsqueezer  said:
			
		

> That ancient TI scientific calculator you've got there still works huh? :big: I think that takes me back to my college days....



No (spit) TI. That's a pure solar (no battery) Casio that I've had forever. It just keeps on ticking.

When I went to college, my calculator was a slide rule. Still have it. I plan to use it to teach my grandchildren about logarithms.


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## modeng2000 (Jan 25, 2011)

Thanks for the extra pictures Marv, all is now clear.

John


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## d-m (Jan 25, 2011)

Thm:
Thanks Marv 
now I will put my dremal to work

Dave


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## modeng2000 (Jan 28, 2011)

This is the mild steel adaptor I have made that enables the Dremel to be mounted in a tool holder. It fits inside the two ridges on the bottom of the Dremel holder and is secured by an M5 screw. The underside of the adapter has 3 M5 holes for fixing the various attachments, yet to be made :-[

John


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## AlanHaisley (Jan 28, 2011)

Marv,

After looking at this:



			
				mklotz  said:
			
		

> An alternate way to attach the Dremel is to remove the threaded plastic ring at the end of the tool. This reveals a section of 3/4-12 thread which allows one to make accessories such as the aluminum one shown into which the Dremel will thread securely. Think of a slab of aluminum so threaded and held in the QCTP to allow the Dremel to be used as a (desperation) tool post grinder.



I got to thinking about comments over the years about runout while using Dremel tools. In a lot of cases, they were held by a threaded bushing like this. It seems to me that with that relatively huge weight out the back spinning at thousands of RPM a good deal of the runout could come from shake in the back end. That could imply that your use of the router bracket could be reducing this effect a lot.

In the early days, things were simpler with the Dremel. I still remember my first one: straight cylindrical body with a transition to a cylindrical nose. That one would have been easy to make a bracket to hold in multiple places.

Alan


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## mklotz (Jan 28, 2011)

Alan Haisley  said:
			
		

> In the early days, things were simpler with the Dremel. I still remember my first one: straight cylindrical body with a transition to a cylindrical nose. That one would have been easy to make a bracket to hold in multiple places.



Perhaps it's just my German cynicism but I think that Dremel alters their case design every year or two just so you're forced to buy new versions of their accessories. 

One of the most satisfying aspects of having the skills and tools to fabricate "stuff" is being able to defeat such devious marketing tactics.


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## arnoldb (Mar 15, 2011)

> When I went to college, my calculator was a slide rule. Still have it. I plan to use it to teach my grandchildren about logarithms.


Now THAT will teach them a lesson


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## Bluechip (Mar 15, 2011)

mklotz  said:
			
		

> No (spit) TI. That's a pure solar (no battery) Casio that I've had forever. It just keeps on ticking.
> 
> When I went to college, my calculator was a slide rule. Still have it. I plan to use it to teach my grandchildren about logarithms.



Hi Marv

Casio fx-115M ??

Mine's still ticking too. I believe I bought it in 1992 .. or 1993 

BC


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## xo18thfa (Mar 16, 2011)

Brilliant Marv. I use the abrasive cutoff wheels on my Dremel a lot. This set up would solve a lot of problems. Thanks for doing this.

vr Bob


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## AlanHaisley (May 12, 2011)

Marv,

Thanks for the




inspiration. 

Using Google Sketchup, I drew up an initial plan





The realization in metal was slightly modified




I hadn't allowed for just how much the table tilting hinges would raise the lowest level of the table and so had to make a couple of blocks to raise the tool center after the fact.

The backbone is a piece of 1/2"x1/2" plated keystock. In it, I drilled holes on 1 inch centers to pass 10-32 screws. By drilling pretty much the whole length of the bar, it will allow me to move the mototool back and forth if desired.

The second picture should give a good idea of how the hinges and risers were done. The hinges were the only major challenge since they are rounded over. I first made them as squared-off blocks. After drilling the pivot holes, I made a mandrel that let me hold the pieces horizontally with a chuck attached to my rotary table. The other end was supported with a center point. I then milled and turned, milled and turned, milled ...

Eventually things were rounded off to my liking. I then drilled and tapped holes in the upper pins for 2-56 screws. The bottom parts of the hinges were drilled to hold the elevator rods, which were then superglued in place.

All that is left to do with this basic unit is to replace the screws with brass thumbscrews to protect the elevator rods.

The elevator rods are O-1 drill rod, the hinge pivots are brass, the bottom clamp plates are CRS. All else is Aluminum.

Alan


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## mklotz (May 12, 2011)

Well done, Alan. I'm always pleased and flattered when someone thinks enough of my ideas to build one for himself. I think you'll enjoy the tool and building accessories for it to extend its range of use.

For those rounding over tasks, you may find the technique described in my ROUNDER program text file will get the job done quicker and not require dragging out the rotary table.


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## Allthumbz (May 13, 2011)

Marv,

That's an awesome fixture for the Dremel!

You ought to market it- I bet a lot of people would buy it (or well the idea to Dremel!)

Best,

Nelson
***************.com


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## jonkka (May 6, 2014)

Another man's version:

http://mikesworkshop.weebly.com/rotary-tool-stand.html


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