Dremel – Pinewood Derby Demonstrations
It’s that time of year again, if you haven’t already been hard at it – building the fastest and best looking Pinewood Derby car.
I’ve told the story before about how much fun my son and I had building, creating, painting, and putting what we thought was the fastest car we could put together. You can see a photo of it here.
It all started with a trip to Lowes for one of their demonstrations. They are going to be happening over the next month. Just contact Lowes, or go on their website, and find out when the next one is near you.
My son’s car still sits on his shelf, leaning against his trophy. For all the scouts who were there that night, I bet only one or two others can say the same.
There is nothing more fun that night than having a car that really competes. Kids get fist pumping, yelling, cheering, and proud smiles are had all around. Compare that to the kids who really didn’t compete. They’re just ready to go home.
The primary difference in our night was using a Dremel Rotary Tool to sand, polish, shape, and create. Without the Dremel tool, I guarantee you that we would not have come home with a trophy.
Is it about the trophy? Yep.
That may sound strange. I wasn’t in it to crush the others. I wanted my son and I to give our best. And today, that trophy is still something we’re proud of.
Here’s what I would do:
First, contact Lowes and go to a demonstration.
Second, plan on buying a Dremel that night, or order one online from Amazon (cheapest place).
Third, carve out time each day to spend with your son. Let him do most the work, except where safety is the issue.
Fourth, polish everything with the highest grit paper you can find – wheels, axels, body, everything.
Fifth, polish it some more.
Sixth, paint, sand, and decorate.
Seventh, go have a blast and bring home a trophy.
If you’re looking for the best Dremel Rotary Tool you can find, click on the link below, which will take you to the Amazon webpage. It is the same exact one I use.
Dremel Multi-Max Review
I don’t know about your, but I have watched the TV infomercials for the Fein Multimaster. It looks good, but not having the money they are asking, I decided to purchase the Multi-Max and try it out. I think another reason the Fein is so expensive is because they are paying millions of dollars for that infomercial.
I have used The Dremel Multi Tool for several different jobs. For the most part it did a good job, and did all that I needed it to do. I don’t believe the Fein could have done any better.
Here are some of the tasks that it took on.
- Removing flooring next to cabinets – The old underlayment was not reusable and I did not want to remove the cabinets so I made a cut in the the underlayment at the cabinets then removed the majority of the flooring. It made a difficult job easier. Doing this otherwise is a mess and a potential for damage.
- Cutting holes in drywall - This is a piece of cake. This is great for cutting holes for electrical boxes. The straight blades leave a nice clean hole without a lot of dust. For those times when you need to get access to plumbing to make changes or to repair a pipe it works nicely. In one case I removed the drywall, made the necessary changes then I was able to reuse the drywall to close up the hole because the cut was so clean. In adding the electrical box, I was doing so inside a cabinet, above a stove. I had to cut through 1/4″ of plywood and 1/2″ of drywall. It was really tight and this little tool allowed me to get inside a make a clean cut that was a perfect fit for the box.
- Cutting plumbing pipes – It did a good job on copper pipe buried in the wall and it did satisfactory on plastic drain pipe. The main thing with plastic is that it would melt if you didn’t make your cut fast enough. You just need to learn to do that more quickly.
- Making a flush cut in wood siding - I installed new sliding glass doors that opened on a deck. It worked perfectly to cut the siding at the deck plate so I could get the old door out while leaving a clean cut for the new trim. I had no problems. Didn’t notice a loss in power or a struggle to get the job done.
I probably used this Dremel Multi Max for two months to complete those different jobs, and it worked fine. Really, above my expectations. I didn’t have problems with the blades coming loose and it never got hot enough to stop because of overheating. I didn’t think that it would be sub par, but after watching the Fein infomercial, you have expectations that nothing else can work as well.
Do you need the Multi Max and could I have done this work with other tools? Sure, but it would have taken much longer or there would have been a lot more extra work to repair the damage from other tools.
I recommend this tool, especially if you like to do all your own home repair and improvement projects. If you’re a professional contractor, well I don’t know how this will hold up to that kind of work, but for weekend warriors, I think it’s perfect.
Get The Dremel Tool Engraving Attachment For Security
I’m not sure how many times I read about things getting stolen at schools, work, from the backyard, or wherever. As a Dremel Tool owner, one of the things you might want to do is use one of the popular Dremel Tool Parts – the engraver attachment.
Depending upon the kit that came with your Dremel when you bought it, you may have one in your kit and not even know it… or have just never used it. If you don’t have one, you can go down to Lowes and pick one up for a few bucks, or just order one off of Amazon.com
If you want to purchase the full kit, which you can see in the image to your right, it comes with full carving and engraving tools. It’s a pretty cool little kit for less than $15.
The main reason I am writing this now is that with all the back to school stuff, you could use the engraver to etch your name into your very expensive graphing calculator, locks, phones, ipods, and just about anything that is plastic, wood, or metal.
Engraving your name into something is a huge deterent to someone stealing something. If you just have a sticker or your name written in marker on the item, that can be covered, pulled off, or erased. Now, if someone really wants to steal something, they’ll do it. But, having your name engraved on an item is a smart thing to do.
Here’s what a few people had to say about why they liked the engraver kit:
“Great Product. I used it on wood, glass, and metal to carve or engrave a multitude of letter, etc.”
“This is a great value kit!!! the small carving pieces are for fine detail work, and i recommend the use of those devices for a flexshaft. The bonus on this kit are the diamond covered bits which are great for wood, glass etc. And the silicon carbide stones are great for glass etc.”
“I used the engraver tips to engrave our names into all of our things that we take to work and school. We just want to help keep honest people honest.”
You get the idea. It is a nice attachment or kit to add ot your Dremel Tool for a few bucks. I used it to put my kid’s names on the back of their ipods this morning. My handwriting isn’t the best, but the tool did a great job and there is no mistaking whose ipods they are now 
.
A little prevention can go a long way from having to go out and spend another $150-$300 to replace some calculator or other electronic device.
Cordless or Corded Dremel Tool?
It seems like more and more Dremel Rotary Tools and Dremel Multi Tools are going cordless. So, that brings about a choice – do you want to buy a cordless Dremel or buy one with a cord?
Let me give you a quick example of why I don’t like cordless power tools. Not long ago I was putting up a new fence around my house. Down here in Texas we all have wooden fences around our yards. I had a nice Porter Cable cordless drill that I was using to drive screws through the wooden fence and into the posts. These were long wood screws and took quite a bit of torque and power to put in each screw.
With a cordless drill, it takes a lot of life out of the battery to do that work. I was constantly having to stop and let the battery recharge. I had 2 batteries, but even with alternating, the demand was greater than the power.
Since then, I have replaced that drill with a Milwaukee power drill with a cord. I have constant power. There aren’t too many places I cannot go with it. I have about 350 feet of power cords here at home, so I’m good. I won’t ever buy a cordless drill again.
However, I do like my cordless Dremel Rotary Tool. It does the work for me just fine. Since I am not needing the same power and torque, the battery life tends to last longer. I like it much better than my old corded Dremel because the cord always seemed to get in the way.
The one big piece of advice I can give you is this – if you are going to work cordless, buy a spare battery. It will save you from losing your temper and saying words that you don’t want your kids to repeat. Sooner or later your battery will die while doing a project. Having a backup battery to switch out with, and then start recharging the other will be more than enough to complete almost any project.
The one exception may be the Dremel Multi Tool, which can require some extra power as it rips through material. It’s a toss up between cordless and corded. If you’re going to use it often, you may even consider two spare batteries.
The last piece of advice is to make sure you use a Lithium battery for longer life. Read some of the reviews on Amazon to see what others are saying about the life of the batteries.
Using Your Dremel Tool To Remove Striped Screws
Here is another way that you can use your Dremel Rotary Tool. This last weekend I was removing a handicap handle that I had installed on a wall while my mother was here visiting. I attached these handles to the wall near a step in our house so she would have a grip to stabilize herself in going up and down into the living room. I’m sure you’ve seen them before.
These handles come with six 2 inch wood screws so that you can take them deep into the stud or frame that you are mounting them to. Afterall, they need to bear quite a bit of weight, potentially.
When it came time to remove the screws, two of them did not want to come out very easily. I ended up stripping the screw head, and was not able to remove them. I didn’t want this handle on the wall permanently, so I read on a forum where someone had used their Dremel Tool to remove the screw. Here is what I did.
- Use the cutting wheel attachement.
- Very carefully, cut a slot across the head of the screw so that you can use a “Standard” screwdriver to insert into the slot you just cut.
- Make sure the slot you cut is deep enough to grip the screw, but not too deep so that you weaken the head of the screw.
- Use a standard screw driver to begin turning the screw. I recommend this over a power screw driver so you don’t break off the head.
- Then, finish up with an electric screw driver or drill.
It worked great on both screws. I didn’t need any other Dremel Tool Accessory, just a simple cutting wheel, used on high speed, and gently cut the slot.
Once again, the Dremel Rotary tool is quite versitle and useful in so many different functions. It may not be the tool you use every day, but it is the tool that you will need quite often when no other tool on your workbench has the ability to do.
