Woodworking
Dremel — where were you all these years!
In the beginning of 2023, I treated myself to a Dremel 8220—a powerful tool for carving, cutting, etching and what not! Unfortunately it laid around in my workshop till this May.
I had only used a power tool for wood working once in my life and it was terrifying — the fear of me chopping off my finger, lingered around as I cut planks with a circular saw — It stem from me getting injured on multiple occasions while using hand tools. So when I got a Dremel I was skeptical of me ever using it.
Project Blue Jay
I wanted to make a Blue jay for a relative of mine in May and decided to stick with what I knew best: cut, chip & sand — all with hand tools — no machine tools involved. I started off by outlining the bird, from a reference I had taken off of the internet; once I was satisfied I transferred it to wood(Sycamore). I started by cutting off the outline of the bird with a coping saw(this is one of my favourite tools). Once I had the shape of the bird cut it was time for my knives to come out. You see, since the beginning of this year I had worked on a few wood working projects and my knife was for some reason a bit blunt(tip: do not use your morakniv on Burma Teak), I only noticed it when I started to chip the wood for this project. I started sharpening my knife on the Japanese stone — just to injure myself again (I know — why dont I wear gloves!) I continued to sharpen. Once done, I started chipping off the block of wood and that’s when I realised Sycamore is not so easy to carve. Given that I only had 2 days to finish the bird. I decided its about time I brought out the Dremel.
Hola Dremel
Contrary to what people think, Dremel is huge — the one that runs on battery. It’s scary to hold with one hand and when it's running at 30000 RPM it feels like you are holding a beast. I started off with sanding the bird at 10k RPM it was good but it looked like the finish line was still far and I wouldn’t be able to finish. That’s when I decided to bump it up a notch—hello 20k RPM. Woah, I was impressed with the amount of wood that I was able to shave off within an hour, my block stared to look like a bird from all the dimensions. I started getting comfortable — changed the bit on dremmel to carve out certain sections, it was all going well and suddenly the piece slipped out of my hand and the Dremel bruised my finger, thankfully it was a small cut and I managed to keep my finger — Phew. Now, even though I managed to keep my finger intact the bleeding wasn’t stopping. I went inside my house tried looking for things to clean the wound and thankfully managed to stop the bleeding. I put a band-aid on it and got back right to work — I was short on time so had to. When I went back to my workshop I picked up the piece from the ground and checked to see if there was any damage, luckily all was well.
Gloves on
I detest gloves — they take away the tactile feel of wood, squeezing out the joy and making carving feel less therapeutic. But as I forayed into the world of machine tools I realised I had to reassess what I considered to be joyful. I had to wear gloves, unlike hand tools these machines had a mind of their own, they moved fast and in a blink of an eye could lead you to questioning your choices of hobby. As I put the glove on (yes you read it right — one glove) I switched on my Dremel and sanded away. It took me around 2–3 hours to sand the bird to an admirable state; all the while switching my battery as it ran out of charge every hour or so and also taking rest when Dremel heated up, so much, that I couldn’t hold it anymore.
The realisation
As I came closer to the final design, I realised how much time Dremel had actually saved me. What would have taken me a couple of days was over in a 2 days. Also, given that I was strapped for time, not leveraging Dremel would have been foolish.
Final thoughts
While my fear of machine tool still lingers, I can definitely vouch for their calibre and efficiency. What I encountered wasn’t short of magic for me. While I might occasionally visit hand tools, I believe Dremel will become my goto tool for all things carving and sanding.
