I went over to the dark side a couple of years ago when the price of good CBN grinding wheels dropped down near $100.
I recently decided I should start recommending the purchase of CBN wheels for newbies. You never need to “dress” a CBN grinding wheel thus the size of the wheel never changes. This really simplifies things for newbies. Once they get their grinder and sharpening jigs set up they never need to adjust things.
Continue reading CBN Grinder Wheels
One of my students showed up one day with a little battery powered workshop blower. I tried it and I was sold. I had to have one.
I put it on my Christmas list last year and it is the best Christmas present ever!
Continue reading Workshop Blower for Cleanup
Groz UG100-3 Drill Press Vise
Long ago I got this drill press vise that I really like. It is a Groz
UGL100-3 made in India.
My friends and students also really like this vise when they use
it. They want to get one. But, until recently I had to tell them they were
out of luck. I could not find anyone still selling it.
That changed recently when I found a very similar one on Zoro
(www.zoro.com) made by Dayton #4CPG1.
I used this vise mostly for drilling metal things. But, I also use
it for plastic pipe (often) and wooden things (not very often).
I like to use Morse Taper drills in the tailstock of my lathe to drill holes.
Updated: 4/18/2021. The selection of Morse Taper drills on Ebay has sort of dried up.Reasonably priced imported MT drills are sold by Victor Machinery (www.victornet.com)
You should also check out my “Cheap Big Drills” bog entry.
Ebay is a good place to purchase large Morse Taper drills cheap.
Continue reading Morse Taper Drills on Ebay
Here is my response to an e-mail asking about woodburners.
I currently own and use a Detail Master Excalibre (the silver one with 2 ports) with lots of different Fixed Tip Detail Master Vented pens (the silver aluminum ones). I also have a couple of Razertip Tips sets that I mount in a Razertip interchangeable tip pen.
If I was buying a new system today I would purchase a Burnmaster Eagle (the red one with 2 ports) with Burnmaster Replaceable Tip Pen and Tips. The 10 tips available from Burnmaster are good for beginners. In the long run you can add more tips by purchasing sets of tips from Razertip.
Currently the $259 “Burnmaster Eagle” available from “Packard Woodworks and other retailers for roughly the same price looks real good to me. I like having 2 pens and only need one set of 10 interchangeable tips.