Dremel Advice

I just received my new dremel in the mail and I bought a cleaning and polishing kit to go with it. I sit down with eager anticipation, looking forward to restoring that first razor and realize I have no idea what I'm doing.

I go to trusty SRP and I search. There are a lot of mentions of dremels in this forum. Seems that they are broadly used (when hand sanding isn't) for restoration but I wasn't able to find any clear cut instructions on how to properly use them. I have zero background with this sort of thing. Never used a rotary tool. Not really that handy.

Soooooo for you folks out there that happen to use dremels for your restores I was wondering if you could maybe put together a little step by step guide for us newbs that would tell how to remove rust, patina and buff a blade using a dremel. What accessories do you use? What sequence do you go in, etc etc etc.

I would appreciate it massively and I bet it would save me (not to mention countless other noobs) a lot of needless mistakes, wasted materials and headaches!

Cheers,
Looch

First of all make sure you have the flexshaft
for the dremel you bought. I mainly do
hand sanding on my blades, but I do occasionally
use the 3M radial bristle discs to initially
remove tarnish and rust, especially in tight
spots.

I was using the felt wheels for polishing, but
am now using the cloth wheels (I think they
call them muslin wheels) to polish. It doesn't
leave the streaking that the felt wheels leave.

I also use the Dremel to remove pins. I use a
small burr bit to mark the center of the pin and
then move up to a #50 bit and finally a #37 bit.
I hope this helps some.

John

PS Buy Bill Ellis' restoration CD if you haven't already.
There's some real good information in there.
www.billysblades.com

Honestly, to remove rust, patina and buff a blade I don't use the dremel at all. That's all by hand for me. Dremels can help with this stuff if you have the right bits, but in my opinion, the blades don't come out nearly as well and are cause for a lot more mistakes. The dremel for me is used a lot more for making scales and fixing odd problems that come up now and then. I agree with Kerry- get Bill's cd.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLUDR2IrVLM It was a one-take thing, with lots of pauses and I wasn't worried about the wardrobe, but good enough to give you the basics on how to give a blade a once-over. :nj I do 2 with each grit. You can get the flap wheels (1.5" diameter, 0.5" thickness in 120/240/400 grits) to give you a nice satin finish from widgetsupply.com and 3/4" radial bristle discs and mandrels (get the 5-pack) from smallparts.com to get it up to mirror.
MAKE SURE IT'S ROTATING AWAY FROM THE EDGE