Model Boat Mayhem
Mess Deck: General Section => Chit-Chat => Topic started by: bfgstew on February 26, 2018, 02:34:43 pm
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Having fun re making the mast on my current build, i needed to drill 20 holes in the brass tube, simple i hear you cry...........not with cheapo drills off the local market. Not only do they not drill very well, they break as soon as you look at them. Needless to say it ruined 3 or 4 lengths of brass tubing and wasted 20 x 0.5mm drills!!!!
So bought some Heller drill bits, German quality, £7 for 10. Popped one in my dremel, 20 holes drilled in a minute, clean and tidy and no breakages or ruined brass.
Moral of this story? Buy quality, it pays off in the long run.
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So now you know the Drill ;D
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Having fun re making the mast on my current build, i needed to drill 20 holes in the brass tube, simple i hear you cry...........not with cheapo drills off the local market. Not only do they not drill very well, they break as soon as you look at them. Needless to say it ruined 3 or 4 lengths of brass tubing and wasted 20 x 0.5mm drills!!!!
So bought some Heller drill bits, German quality, £7 for 10. Popped one in my dremel, 20 holes drilled in a minute, clean and tidy and no breakages or ruined brass.
Morale of this story? Buy quality, it pays off in the long run.
my grand dad always used to say, you get what you pay for lad...............I'm still using his handed down chisels of over 120 years old.............no plastic handles in my workshop.!!!
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another of his sayings was....."cheap tools.........shoddy work"..........he was in the guild of master craftsmen, and a qualified master pattern maker and cabinet maker........
he made these out of Lignum Vitae with Ivory inserts as his apprentice piece in 1884...........I am still using some of the tools I inherited from him today for my model ship making..............not bad at all.
always buy the best you can .
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I had a load of 0.8mm holes required through stainless steel sheet, I found the standard drills weren't man enough for it, as soon as I bought pcb drills, they just eat through the stainless, I still break a few though, even though I got them through ebay they are not too expensive (just don't try and get them individually from RS components).
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Having fun re making the mast on my current build, i needed to drill 20 holes in the brass tube, simple i hear you cry...........not with cheapo drills off the local market. Not only do they not drill very well, they break as soon as you look at them. Needless to say it ruined 3 or 4 lengths of brass tubing and wasted 20 x 0.5mm drills!!!!
So bought some Heller drill bits, German quality, £7 for 10. Popped one in my dremel, 20 holes drilled in a minute, clean and tidy and no breakages or ruined brass.
Morale of this story? Buy quality, it pays off in the long run.
I feel your pain as I’ve been here too {-) I only use hella cobalt tipped drills now as they go through anything and last for ages
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Too true, I only buy the more expensive side for drill bits as I know that you’re only getting the quality what you paid for. The biggest issue I see especially at work is people using the the colbalt drill bits incorrectly as they try to use them like high speed steel bits and race them through the metal instead of slow and steady!
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Yes I agree cheapest is never the best option I bought a brushless moter from china needless to say It will not get up to speed
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Cheap drill bits are ok for softwoods, and not much more.
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Looks like we can put this one to bed then? No word from the 'cheap Chinese brigade' yet, we know you are out there, it's no good hiding :}
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Looks like we can put this one to bed then? No word from the 'cheap Chinese brigade' yet, we know you are out there, it's no good hiding :}
i will stick my foot in my mouth...
it depends on what you are trying to do...
i agree that expensive german drill bits will be better than cheap chinese ones, but i would disagree that ALL expensive items are better than their cheap counter-parts.
I have spent my hard-earned money on a chinese made FrSky transmitter at $299 that outperforms a $1299 german spektrum radio in any measurable metric.
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i will stick my foot in my mouth...
it depends on what you are trying to do...
i agree that expensive german drill bits will be better than cheap chinese ones, but i would disagree that ALL expensive items are better than their cheap counter-parts.
I have spent my hard-earned money on a chinese made FrSky transmitter at $299 that outperforms a $1299 german spektrum radio in any measurable metric.
Well you did still spend three hundred dollars on it, not twenty quid plus postage, that some still do. On that, I think radio control prices have been artificially 'up priced' for years. Looking at other tech out there, with similar capabilities, it is only a transmitter after all, we should expect good quality product to come down in price somewhat.....not using a twenty quid radio in anything I have spent time and money on!
Also my Grandads wooden and oiled spirit level from WWII Portsmouth Dockyard ( it's probably nicked!! ), looks good, smells good and works..
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I use cheap Chinese rubbish - and I find it all works just fine. I see lots of boaters with broken down boats farting around with thousands of £££ of equipment - programming problems with their ESCs, radio hassle, servo travel problems and all sorts of grief while my boats are all 'charge & go'.
I use the £20 4-channel 2.4GHz radios and the £5 '320A' ESCs and the £10 for 8 mini servos and the £1.99 385 motors from Ebay - never had a single problem.
I won't say anything about blaming tools. {-)
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I too have witnessed the 'Computer Transmitter Headscratch', most amusing. As to the other thing, to each their own. I like to strike a balance between a £5 and a £179 speed control, there is an answer for all of us out there. Like the Superglue thread, stick with what you are happy with.
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Ma grand-mère a dit: je suis trop pauvre pour acheter pas cher
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the only reasons i don't use the $40 cheapo 2.4ghz radios is 2-fold:
1) i prefer 1 radio for all my boats, not 1 radio for each boat. the $299 radio (or the $150 'lesser' version) can handle thousands of models.
2) i run model submarines as well, and they don't work with 2.4ghz radios... the radio i do use allows me to add a 915mhz TX module, which does work with submarines.
if it weren't for those two points, i would buy the $40 basic radios as well. for me, there is no need for truly intricate mixing... i do not fly the giant gliders. tank steering and end point adjustment are as complicated as i get.
i also buy the least expensive servo i can find that has the specs i need. i don't buy $250 servos if $5 servos will do the job. I don't buy $200 speed controls if $10 ones work.
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Ma grand-mère a dit: je suis trop pauvre pour acheter pas cher
Very good point...after I googled it :-))
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I use a separate radio for each model so other people can have a go while I drive another.
Also, as my boats are never more than about 100 yds from me, super reliable mega-range is unimportant.
Even the cheapest radios have channel mixing/V-tail settings these days.
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I seem to spot some similarities here with the discussion on tools bought from Lidl. Their food is pretty awful as well, cheap but still awful.
John
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My adage has always been to spend enough to get good quality in whatever I buy. Not the cheapest or the most expensive.
Whilst cheap can get the job done part of the enjoyment for me with regards to hobbies and DIY etc. is having decent quality tools and equipment.
Chris
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As always it is horses for courses. Recently my old portable electric drill has been coming to the end of its useful life. I have replaced it with a high end Bosch 'amateur' one as I didn't want a cheapie but the cost of a 'professional' drill would be unjustified for the amount of use I will make of it.
Colin
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There is cheap, and there is cheapest.
I agree, it is horses for courses.
Yes, old-time top quality hand tools can be a thing of beauty, like handsaws that cost $250. Most of the ones I have seen have been nicked from work, or are heirlooms, not purchased.
You often hear the old adage, 'only buy the best'. I wouldn’t mind betting that everyone who has ever said this has at least one dirty little secret in their tool box.
It is said that the best place to buy old ‘craftsman’ tools is at the auctions or in boot sales. I visited every sale room and antiques place in North Wales one summer. There were lots of old wooden toolboxes, some with tools, but not many tools of quality. There were a few wooden bodied planes that needed work to restore them, once a chisel (blade now 2” long), with random screwdrivers etc. thrown in. You can buy restored tools on ebay, but the cost, wow!
If I had only bought the best I would not have 20% of the tools I have now. Most of the work that most of us do uses power tools anyway. Some jobs, like making dovetails, are better done with better tools, but when was the last time I cut a dovetail? With my low level of skill, you probably would not notice the difference resulting from top tools. Besides, there are lots of other ways of making/joining boxes, other than dovetails.
Personally, I usually buy the cheaper end of mid-range priced tools, or to put it another way, the better cheap tools. Most, if not all, made in China, I now have a lot of them. The only lemons I have had, were the cheapest of cheap tools, and even then not all of the cheapest tools are lemons.
My 2 cents
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As always it is horses for courses. Recently my old portable electric drill has been coming to the end of its useful life. I have replaced it with a high end Bosch 'amateur' one as I didn't want a cheapie but the cost of a 'professional' drill would be unjustified for the amount of use I will make of it.
Colin
Nearly all the power tools I have bought have been Bosch home DIY range my oldest is a portable battery drill I bought about 20years ago (pre Nicad) I now use it as a standby round at the club house it is still going strong as are all the other Bosch grinders,saws, strimmers sanders
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Nothing wrong with Bosch. About 20 years ago they were one of the few good brands. Seeing how B&D had gone down the pan. However, we have a lot more choice now.
I recon a lot of the tools bought in Aldi/Lidl will still be going strong in 20 years time. I have had some for over 10 years already. Not that anyone else on here ever shops for tools in Aldi or Lidl ok2
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For Hobby use I have found the Lidl tools perfectly adequate, If I wanted professional tools I would spend the premium and buy them, but for my hobby purposes the lidl tools do the job.a great deal has been said how some of the lidl tools look just like their Proxxon cousins, and maybe they are built to a lower quality standard, but the price is a lot cheaper, I would be annoyed if I bought a proxxon tool and after 5 years it gave up the ghost, but a similar tool from lidl's, well if it lasts 5 years thats fine, at that price range I will have got my moneys worth. If I was a professional full time model maker, I would certainly go for a more professional range of tools, I recently had to replace my corded hammer drill (my 25 year old bosch one finally gave in and the trigger mechanism was no longer available to repair it) so it was replaced with a lidl one plus an old ryobi from the boot fair - which looks like it has been worked fairly hard
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Nothing wrong with Bosch. About 20 years ago they were one of the few good brands. Seeing how B&D had gone down the pan. However, we have a lot more choice now.
I recon a lot of the tools bought in Aldi/Lidl will still be going strong in 20 years time. I have had some for over 10 years already. Not that anyone else on here ever shops for tools in Aldi or Lidl ok2
Absolutely, for my DIY I've got a few Bosch tools but have increasingly moved to DeWalt. Still have a couple of old B&D tools but my battery drill was replaced with a much better and smaller Bosch one.
Whilst some of my power tools were quite expensive I justified it (to my wife!) saying that it would cost far more if we got someone in. Which is true as I've saved a fortune and do a better job in most cases than the "professionals".