- Joined
- Apr 16, 2012
- Messages
- 3,544
Sort of. The bit itself under some pressure seemed to be buckling. I figured it was the diamond coated bit, since they were some big cheap set that I got off eBay just for this kind of thing. The Workstation itself isn't the most solid press, and it was a little difficult to get the alignment perfect for each round of cutting.
Essentially what I did was have it all as close to the center as possible, and taped the piece (the blade in this instance) down. Then adjusted the Dremel via the lever in the back for height and position, and did my best to line it up. I find that unless you fully fully tighten everything (including the Dremel into the Workstation), you'll have a millimeter or so of play from even shutting it off and turning it on. At that point, I would use the press lever itself to slightly guide the bit onto the hole I was making as I actually pressed it. It seemed to do the trick.
I think the press itself can hold it steady enough, provided you take care to tighten everything up. Since the Dremel securement is plastic, don't go nuts with it, but it tightens pretty damn hard with the included wrench. I also keep the bit as far into the chuck as possible to further prevent flex. The blade steel was hard, way hard. To be honest, it's the first time I've cut into hardened steel, so I was going pretty cautiously. I cut a bit, dabbed some cutting oil on the hole, and cleaned the metal off the tip of the diamond bit. I repeated that with light pressure, only giving a little more push if I felt it was cutting alright, and then backing off to repeat the oiling and cleaning. The bit worn down pretty quickly, but it still had enough tooth to cut a hole I was happy with.
The Workstation isn't the quintessential drill press one would think of, but if you take a few extra steps to secure everything and reduce the flex of the bit and the mounting pole, you should be ok. Sorry for the long-winded response, but since I spent a couple hours last night doing this for the sake of caution, I figured I'd detail as much as I could gather from the experience.
Essentially what I did was have it all as close to the center as possible, and taped the piece (the blade in this instance) down. Then adjusted the Dremel via the lever in the back for height and position, and did my best to line it up. I find that unless you fully fully tighten everything (including the Dremel into the Workstation), you'll have a millimeter or so of play from even shutting it off and turning it on. At that point, I would use the press lever itself to slightly guide the bit onto the hole I was making as I actually pressed it. It seemed to do the trick.
I think the press itself can hold it steady enough, provided you take care to tighten everything up. Since the Dremel securement is plastic, don't go nuts with it, but it tightens pretty damn hard with the included wrench. I also keep the bit as far into the chuck as possible to further prevent flex. The blade steel was hard, way hard. To be honest, it's the first time I've cut into hardened steel, so I was going pretty cautiously. I cut a bit, dabbed some cutting oil on the hole, and cleaned the metal off the tip of the diamond bit. I repeated that with light pressure, only giving a little more push if I felt it was cutting alright, and then backing off to repeat the oiling and cleaning. The bit worn down pretty quickly, but it still had enough tooth to cut a hole I was happy with.
The Workstation isn't the quintessential drill press one would think of, but if you take a few extra steps to secure everything and reduce the flex of the bit and the mounting pole, you should be ok. Sorry for the long-winded response, but since I spent a couple hours last night doing this for the sake of caution, I figured I'd detail as much as I could gather from the experience.
