A is for Another Collection? Mini Power-Tools

It's terrible isn't it, how this stuff builds up, while the planet burns? And we are, one way or another, all, equally guilty. There's no point thinking you're innocent, because of your fanatical, and diligent recycling, if you drive a bloody-great 4x4-SUV-Crossover 'people carrier', which had less cargo space than a Nissan Micra with the seats down, and never carries more than two people or the weekly shop . . . becasue 'Status, init?"!

 

We all have too much stuff.

 

Case in point (no pun intended, but it's there);

 

I inherited this from Mum, in the great sort-out of the Estate. When I was a kid, back in the heady days of the 1960's-early 1970's, tools like this were very expensive, quite rare and the sort of thing only professionals possessed, for specific tasks, or which were commonly only found in specific industries.

 

This is probably a 240v (actually 220 volt) export model, and with the odd tool change, and the additional stuff lying in the tray, is probably remarkably well-preserved, albeit, commoner in the US? The Handee portable power-tool, a solid piece of kit, existing many years before Black & Decker's mini-tools would be a thing!

 

I found this online, and it's a fascinating exercise in 1950/60's marketing/adspeak, well worth a read. I love the bullet points;

• Shock-proof Bakelite construction
• &
• Patented protective sleeve, protects all parts

both mean . . . it's got a plastic case!

 

The last line 'Trouble-free radial type seven bar commutator' (a word spellcheck doesn't like), is pure technobabble, designed to convince the uninitiated that what they are thinking of buying, might help put a man on the moon! NASA being exactly the sort of people who would have had a few of these in their workshops!

 

The paragraph to the left is also interesting - "Accurately made from seasoned grey-iron casting" - what? Seasoned? Did they lay them out in the sun for a year, running out with little umbrellas every time it looked like rain, so they didn't rust? Or did they cook them in sausage-fat until they were blacked down! It's literally nonsense!

 

You'll spot a few others if you read it all, but faintly amusing, especially if you followed Mad Men (which I didn't), are familiar with Death of a Salesman (which I am), or saw Tin Men, which I loved. However a price of $19.50 in say, 1955, is the equivalent of $235/240 dollars today, a lot of money, a point we'll return to in a minute!

 

With the drill came a bunch of equally vintage (near 'antique') tools, among which, interestingly, wrapped in the rubber-band (well petrified, but set-in-place), included a quantity of dentists quick-release drill bits. I believe the drill came from 'Old Mr. Benning', after his death, he was a silversmith in Sleaford, near Bordon, but the dentist bits probably came from Mr. Benney, who first practised in Hartley Wintney and then moved to a new-build practice in Hook.

 

The brass case of grinding and fettling burrs, before cleaning, and after sorting by size/burr-head type; they just don't make stuff with this quality any more, each bit has its own compartment, 40, altogether, about 3mm square.

 

There was, also in my Mother's stuff, an actual dentist's drill, probably also from the practice in Hook, and with the quick-release head, a simple push button frees whatever tool is in the mechanism, and you can pull it out and replace it with another. If you find mini-drill bits with a chink taken out of them near the base of the shaft, it's for one of these drills.

 

And again, for many years, many decades, this was a technology, or application, only really made available to dentists, or very specialised workshops/research labs/facilities!

 

Now, of course, every mini-drill sold, comes with a flexible drive-extension.

 

A comparison between the old drive connector and the new, they will both work with the new chucks. The technology was with us, though, in strimmers/brush-cutters, although their shafts are sometimes a bundle of twisted cables and/or wrapped in a loose spring, to compensate for the vibration down the long handle/arm.

 

The other half of the case of my 'go-to' machine, it's an Aldi (or, probably, actually Lidl) bought machine, and returning to prices - was about 40-quid, twenty years ago, now they are £22/25 each, with both discount supermarkets (and the larger stores of most supermarkets), almost permanently carrying one version or another - mains, rechargeable-battery, or pocket types.

 

Lidl now brand everything Parkside, and it probably comes from China, but this one was made in Germany by Ferm, and is a bloody-good, medium-range machine, I liked it so much, on first try, I went back the next day and bought several more, as Christmas presents that year (1990's/early 2000's) for other people. The two wobbly lines (top right of the case) are where the little tools were kept.

 

Returning to the point at the top of the post, too much stuff, but it just, sort of collects! Each time one of these stores issues a set of tools, often in useful-looking little wooden boxes, you sort of convince yourself, there's one or two you don't have, and they are so cheap, it's worth the duplicates for the new ones, then you get few from a friend, grab a specific set of Dremel spares (collets and mandrels) in the January sale at B&Q, spot some bargain in an import-rich hardware store, inherit a bunch from a parent, and before you know it, you have a collection of mini-tool tools!

 

I've used some of them! I've even used a few to destruction, sanding drums and cutting wheels don't last long, and the smaller grinding stones quickly deform under use, but that only encourages further purchases - in case you're running short?!!

 

Top left are the diamond cutting wheels and milling-cutters, then clockwise in a spiral; the old bits, burrs and dental tools; the new bits, burrs and borers; nylon cleaning brushes; brass brushes for cleaning, polishing, and removing surface rust; sanding drums ready to go; large fibre-reinforced cutting wheels; round, shaped and small grinders; medium round-headed grinders; large; small drum grinders; medium and large drum grinders; shaped or reinforced disc grinders; saw-blades/cutters; small drum-sanders - ready and spares; flexible or paper sanding discs; standard-sized rigid cutting wheels; odd sized cutting wheels; and flat disc grinders.

 

Different companies use different colours, so I've never really known if there is a code, but I think as a rule of thumb, dark ones (black/grey) tend to coarse structure, for initial grinding/shaping, or removing heavy corrosion, buried nail-heads (which can't be cut at the shaft by finer tools), orange is medium coarse, pink medium fine, and white ones are very fine, but so are some of the greenish ones, while a couple of reddish-pink ones, seem coarse. So, as far as I can see, there's no hard and fast rule.

 

I've literally just found this, here;

 

https://cuttingtoolpickers.com/collections/cgw-benchtop-grinding-wheels

 

Which seems to half-support my hinted narrative, but with sharpness at one end of the spectrum and durability at the other?

 

A while back, Jan, over at the Site of Curiosities found an excellent video, which goes some way to explaining a lot of it!

 

https://site-of-curiosities.blogspot.com/2025/05/how-to-use-each-dremil-bit.html 

Which leaves the polishers, polish and chuck/spindle tools & spares, in the lid of the other box, soft, floppy mop ones top left, the rest are felt-pads. The little stones are for cleaning/re-shaping the grinding wheels when they get deformed, or the surfaces get smoothed, with embeded soft metal, wood-pulp or something else, which prevents them grinding properly.

 

Because Mum was a silversmith, I have some proper rouge somewhere, in a big tub, while people who have larger workshops, use blocks of different grades, with which they can directly charge the polishing wheels, as they are revolving, mounted on larger lathes. At the hobby end of things, we tend to get two, the basic oxide-brown, equating to rouge, and the green which is a bit coarser I think? If you want a really coarse, 'first pass', use Brasso or automotive T-Cut!

 

And if you are polishing plastic, especially transparencies, like model aircraft canopies or watch-faces, use low speeds, light pressure and something fine like silver-polish, automotive window-cleaner (which fills micro-scratches with wax) or Windowlene, and move the tool around, so nothing heats up. 

 

There are intermediate heads, fabric pads, somewhere between sanders and polishers, I don't have any, but you can make them, or harsher ones, by cutting or punching discs out of scouring pads, sanding pads, or those surfaces scourers, fixing them to a mandrel, with a couple of washers, and then putting them in a clamp on full speed, and shaping them with a blade, the purple/brown sanding pads are good for getting surface rust of tools or garden implements, soft scourers will remove sanding lines in softer metal, prior to polishing/finishing.

 

Under the polishing heads, lays more amassed stuff, the yellow-one was some dirt-cheap discount store thing, where the accessories were worth more than the motor! My old Black & Decker (from the Minicraft rebranding), like the Handee, looking tired now, with a toothed key-chuck . . . it's so 20th Century, man!

Again some inherited (the duplicate Lidl/Ferm, being that Christmas present to Mum, many years ago), some acquired, on life's journey. The greenish-blue one is the Aldi version from a few years ago, which I thought I'd try, but which was a bit heavy at the back, pulling against the hand.

 

If it's a big job, requiring two tools in repetitive/alternate succession, I'll grab one of these and have two working at once. The Minicraft, or even the yellow one, are useful for very tight spaces, although I think the yellow-one is a single speed demented thing? Somewhere underneath is the whole shaft and motor from a broken one, which I had half a mind to convert into a static, mini bench-lathe, for shaping against, but I've yet to get round to it.

 

And that's the problem, we've all got this stuff, in sheds, drawers, attics, garages and cellars, waiting with hope for use, or plans of good intention, and really we need to be passing it on, or thinning it out, at some point there will be more stuff than people to use it!

 

Maybe then, we will escape capitalism, for something more community based, the kind of make-do-and-mend, each-to-his-own, wants-and-needs that the Native Americans have always espoused, that the Amazonians practice, that the Kalahari bush-people swear-by.

 

Not power-based 'Communism', not even socialism, but something more holistic, sharing and caring for the planet and each other. Or maybe we'll just "Drill-baby-drill", until there's nothing left, but there's nothing else out there, Musk won't save us, pissing-about on the Moon or Mars, if we can't save here, they'll be no use to nobody, and nobody is what they'll have.

 

At some point in the next ten or fifteen years, I will donate all this to some 'Men's Shed' community project, or workshop, so it gets the use I've not extracted from it, or which is still posesses!

 

Came in, in the last few months! I found the small kit lost/abandoned in a car park?

3-for-2 on the Parkside (Lidl), £1.98 for three packs - bargain!

 

That's two non-toy-solder posts in a row, whinging about the state of the world, or our part in it, but then, it's my Blog!