Pierced/Carved work question

[badwhiskey]

So, I'm interested in doing stuff like this:

Can't post a direct image, sorry.


Would a Foredom rotary carver be the way to go? If so, what types of bits should I get? I have a fairly sizeable Amazon gift card haunting me!

[Ruler2112]

I've used a dremel to do piercing in the past, which is about the same speed as the foredom IIRC. Didn't work too well - had to push to get the wood to go away and it wanted to follow the grain. Haven't gotten one yet, but I've read that a dental handpiece (drill) is what you want for something like this. (35,000 rpm for the dremel, 400,000 for the dental drill.) There are cheap chinese dental drills on fleabay for ~$20-30 shipped; probably going to break down & buy one soon, just haven't yet.

[Arlin Eastman]

I have to agree that a drumel tool is to slow to use for piercing since I have tried, but it does work good for making grooves in wood for adding inlay.

Arlin

[Arlin Eastman]

Frank

This is what I have been watching on Ebay

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dental-Portable-...M8AAOSwbdpWV7aK

It is high speed "Rotational speed: 220000-350000round/min." and comes with the hand piece. I am thinking an extra 1 or 2 hand pieces would be good too.

Hope it helps

Arlin

[gcrimmins]

A high-speed dental tool doesn't have much power, so I'm not sure if it would work for piercing. If it would, it would be slow going. An NSK Presto would work a lot better. Some of the newer NSK micromotors may work as well. You could check out some of the woodturning or carving retailers to see if there any less-expensive alternatives.

[Steve K]

gcrimmins said:

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A high-speed dental tool doesn't have much power, so I'm not sure if it would work for piercing. If it would, it would be slow going. An NSK Presto would work a lot better. Some of the newer NSK micromotors may work as well. You could check out some of the woodturning or carving retailers to see if there any less-expensive alternatives.

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I bought one of these a couple years ago and have done some small pierced projects with it.
Cheap Knockoff



It works fine near as I can tell. The biggest issue is it does require oiling and there is always the risk of getting oil where you don't want it. The projects were very small and if I were want to do a lot of pierced work I would invest in an NSK Presto. In fact, I've had one in my cart at treeline a couple times and just haven't followed through to purchase.

[badwhiskey]

Not to be dense, but the NSK and the knock off are air tools? How do they hook up to a compressor?

What I'm piecing together is that the Foredom may be better for hogging out large areas and the NSK and knock offs would be better for details. Does that sound right?

Oh, and thanks for all of the replies.

[Steve K]

badwhiskey said:

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Not to be dense, but the NSK and the knock off are air tools? How do they hook up to a compressor?

What I'm piecing together is that the Foredom may be better for hogging out large areas and the NSK and knock offs would be better for details. Does that sound right?

Oh, and thanks for all of the replies.

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Not dense at all, just something you haven't been exposed to.
The two are powered by air. The NSK Presto can be purchased with all the hook ups necessary to use, including and air filter and regulator. The knockoff requires some very minor surgery a supply line. Every thing necessary can be purchased at a hardware and will add 5-10 dollars cost before it's ready to use.
The ultra high speed tools are best at doing piercings but the wood needs to be around 1/16" thick for them to be effective. The biggest advantage to them is, they run at such a high rpm they don't tend to dig in and grab like a dremel or similar tool.

The only safe way to get what you want is just go ahead and buy the presto kit at around $500.00, one of the Foredom kits at around $250.00, maybe a Proxon reciprocating carver but they are only around $200.00. Of course you will want to some carving chisels but they will only set you back 50-100 bucks apiece.

[Wipedout]

gcrimmins said:

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A high-speed dental tool doesn't have much power, so I'm not sure if it would work for piercing. If it would, it would be slow going. An NSK Presto would work a lot better. Some of the newer NSK micromotors may work as well. You could check out some of the woodturning or carving retailers to see if there any less-expensive alternatives.

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Most of the wood turners that do a lot of piercing use dental tools. Like Brian McEvoy. http://www.onegoodturn.ca/store/index.ph...path=65_64

Example of some his work here. http://www.onegoodturn.ca/store/index.ph...duct_id=89

[badwhiskey]

Thanks, that was very helpful. And holy crap Brian McEnvoy is amazing.