Electric Die Grinder for Port Work

I’ve used my dremel with small burrs for small stuff. But having the burr singing in away with out “lever” as on air grinder, is uncomfortable. I control speed with a Variac transformer, but still not comfortable as with air. So your evaluation is not unlike what others have felt but left unsaid. The longer the burr shaft the more skill necessary to guide it as desired.

Have either of you tried one of the shop vac powered dremel tools? Not real powerful, but controlable.

I have used a Dremel and a 1/4 die grinder for porting work which was workable. The die grinder was mostly used with little sanding drums. The heavy work was with the air die grinder. My problem was with the Dremel and that was it would get very HOT in a short amount of time. I would have to let the Dremel rest and cool down so I relegated it to finish and mild metal cutting but mostly the little sanding drums and cone shaped abrasive rolls.

Rip VW said:

I have used a Dremel and a 1/4 die grinder for porting work which was workable. The die grinder was mostly used with little sanding drums. The heavy work was with the air die grinder. My problem was with the Dremel and that was it would get very HOT in a short amount of time. I would have to let the Dremel rest and cool down so I relegated it to finish and mild metal cutting but mostly the little sanding drums and cone shaped abrasive rolls.

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The Makita got hot the first time that I used it(over an hour straight) but didn't so much after that I noticed.

I’ve been cutting ports with my Craftsman Professional electric die grinder since 1974. We’ve been through about 3 power cord and two switch replacements, a stack of brushes and a couple, three shaft bearing sets in those 48 years. It predates engineering plastics, it’s all die cast aluminum body with machined detail parts.

Bogie

I never had much luck with a Dremel tool doing most anything. They seem to break when I use them............

ekimneirbo said:

I never had much luck with a Dremel tool doing most anything. They seem to break when I use them............

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The very first thing that I dabbled with long ago, was cleaning up some spark plug threads on the chambers in those heads in the video with my dads old Dremel. It died before I got em all done and I just bolted them on since the heads ran fine on the two previous engines LOL To be fair it had gotten kinda wet previously from some light flooding.

air vs electric: you can stall and air tool a thousand times without harm.
not so with electric, you get one chance to let the smoke out
tried the dremels a couple times and found them to be seriously underpowered
i've used and abuse the same cp air die grinder since the 90s

Come-on guys the Dremel is made for playing with model planes, trains and automobiles not for machining the real things.

Bogie

Inherited my grandads DuMore die grinder. My aircompressor and Ingersoll Rand wore out before that die grinder did.
Fordom makes a good unit for an electric; we have one at work along with a metabo

Burrs are most effective at higher RPM’s. Way more than dremel can do, plus torque on them is limited. So “small work” is the key. And small burr they can handle is needed too.

I wouldn’t recommend anything big, but touching up small tight thing is their strong point, where it is short and small, lighter material. Not having a lever action speed control is a down fall as well. One don’t want full high speed continuous as throttle speed is comfortable in hand as working. And dremel without throttle is not the tool for the job.

ekimneirbo said:

I never had much luck with a Dremel tool doing most anything. They seem to break when I use them............

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Never owned a Dremel. Too light duty for my liking. My angle die grinder is borderline.

BogiesAnnex1 said:

Come-on guys the Dremel is made for playing with model planes, trains and automobiles not for machining the real things.

Bogie

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I ground a bolt head off the transmission crossmember on the Tbird with a little Dremel because the angle grinder wouldn't fit. It did take me 4 very uncomfortable hours though.

Blue64Tbird said:

I ground a bolt head off the transmission crossmember on the Tbird with a little Dremel because the angle grinder wouldn't fit. It did take me 4 very uncomfortable hours though.

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6" burr might of worked, I've found plenty of random uses for my carbide burrs.

Have the makita too- its a monster! You gotta be paying attention. I do also have the same speed reduction thing - tried it on lathe but only got about 10% reduction, I have found the alu bits to gall up under such crazy speed! Wish it was a little variable..

I found some EXCELLENT bits on amazon, man they kick ***!! https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07FM1BL5T/

And alot of harbor freight sand rolls - man the makita just rips em up..

Fstarocka said:

Have the makita too- its a monster! You gotta be paying attention. I do also have the same speed reduction thing - tried it on lathe but only got about 10% reduction, I have found the alu bits to gall up under such crazy speed! Wish it was a little variable..

I found some EXCELLENT bits on amazon, man they kick ***!! https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07FM1BL5T/

And alot of harbor freight sand rolls - man the makita just rips em up..

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Stay tuned, got a suggestion that I'm gonna try here soon. Those burrs look like a good deal but I use mostly oval/egg and I buy mine from Buckeye Carbide's ebay store or Mcmaster carr mostly . Also I buy my sanding rolls from mcmaster carr or some bulk from Zoro with a discount code.

Finally got around to editing that suggestion

I was actually impressed with this electric die grinder