Star Tech Journal

July 1997
STAR* TECH JOURNAL
You might think you could just
buy the bits and chuck them in
your drill, but it's not so simple.
The drill is big and clumsy and
turns nowhere near as fast. It
would work about as well as
chucking in router bits and try-
ing to use the drill as a router.
for cutting PC board - I use it to
cut a useful piece when making
If you are a modeler, you most
likely know about the Drernel
tool. For the rest of us, it has end-
less uses. Use the wire wheels like
you would a big one on the bench
grinder, to buff up metal. Clean
the plastic residue off a solenoid
plunger after a meltdown or take
the rust off something old. Oxi-
dized PC traces and edge con-
nectors can be cleaned up, but a
word of caution. Like any wire
wheel, these little ones can throw
a wire now and then.
Such a loose wire would cause
trouble on a circuit board, so
keep that in mind if you go
wheeling on a circuit board. A
stiff bristle brush can do this job,
but isn't as stiff or abrasive as
wire. The carbide cutters are just
the thing to cut PC traces and
they work great for carving and
shaping holes in the PC material.
You can also mill metal. It is
handy when hand filing might
take too long. The saw bit is great
power
supply
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my own boards, especially after
rebuilding burnt boards. A lot of
other things can be cut, like plas-
tic sheet, say when patching a
broken playfield shield. In fact
any plastic shaping job is prob-
ably easier with a Drernel.
bench
meter
scope
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solder/
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Last, but not least, my friend the
cutoff wheel. There are two types.
The Drernel brand is a small
wheel bought in bulk, they are
about the size of a .900 token.
They aren't expensive, but you
go through them quickly. I use
them mostly for the light work.
Then there is the big gun, a three
inch wheel made just like the 6
or 7 inch cut-off wheel you might
put in a radial saw to cut tile or
pipe. I use that one a lot.
Got a bolt with stripped threads
so you can't remove it? Use the
wheel to cut the head off. A big
Philips screw with a stripped
head that you can't tum? Cut a
slot across the head with the
wheel and then tum the screw
out with a regular screwdriver.
Missing keys on a padlock or the
keyway has failed? Cut through
the shackle to free the lock. Takes
a couple of minutes rather than
half a day and several hacksaw
blades. How about that odd coin
door that needs a cam for the lock
that's a little shorter than what
you have? Take a standard length
cam and cut the tip off it. Lots
faster than filing. Sarne with
notched lock cams
That's a quick look at a very use-
ful tool. Check it out at your lo-
cal hobby or hardware store. Ob-
viously this is a tool for the more
advanced tool kit, but I consider
it an important tool in a
well equipped shop .
This concludes our 8-part
series on equipping the coin-
op games service bench.