Are Dremel's worth the money

Hi All

For cleaning up welds. grinding rusted or mangled bolts heads or nuts off, and other heavy work I use a 240v Hitachi die grinder. more often than not with a 5mm shaft carbide burr of the right shape, If you are careful they will happily cut steel, even quite heavy stuff just make sure you keep the revs up. not hard to do it has lots of power. it has a 5mm and a 2.5mm collet so will take most burrs and grinding wheels. Grinding wheels are fine but the small sizes do not last long Carbide burs are a lot cheaper now so for heavy work I prefer them. Grinding wheels on the other hand with finer grits will give a fine finish.

The Hitachi has a round body, I made a holder for it to clamp in the tool post on the lathe. Although it is a lot of work to protect the lathe before grinding and the huge cleanup after but it works well.

I also have an old Atlas Copco air hand piece, the one with the turbine bulge on the end of the handle it is also quite powerful and east to use in one hand. for delicate work I use an air pencil very nice to use and extremely light, also sourced at a market.

I have seen air pencils on the Internet for around 20 to 50 dollars. I do have an old Dremel, quite old. it is round and black. unfortunately the windings shorted out. However I prefer the other grinders

Cheers
John