First of all, I don't have a brand name dremel. I have a four speed "rotary tool", but I'm sure this is a common problem with other dremels. After several hardcore minutes of grinding plastic out of one of my guns, I lost all the torque in my dremel and although the piece was spinning, it would stop as soon as I put it to plastic. A little hesitant to spend $50 to get a new one, I decided to put my mechanical skills to the test and see if I could fix it myself.
I opened it up and was immediately met with a dusting of rubber shavings.
The problem was this rubber shoe that the shaft fits into. As you can see, it is completely worn down. I decided that this is a fail-safe the manufacturer put in to make sure the motor isn't destroyed if the bit gets stuck. So next time your piece gets stuck and you a hear nasty grinding noise, that's this rubber piece being eaten away. Shut off the dremel and get the piece unstuck ASAP.
There should be two sides to the rubber piece. The one attached to the output of the motor should be plastic. The first thing I did was separate these two halves.
This was a lesson in never throwing anything away for me. Not one week earlier, I took apart a nebulizer to salvage parts and even decided to keep the little rubber shoes that keep whatever they're attached to from scratching the surface of the table etc. I realized the one I had was a perfect substitute for the rubber piece. In the picture, it's the piece at the top.
Cut off the stub of the rubber foot to make it flat.
Before you start cutting, take the metal piece of the recieving end of the shaft and push it into the rubber as hard as you can so you get a good impression to cut out. This was actually kinda frustrating at times because I kept wanting to use my DREMEL, but it was being operated on....
Once you know where you're cutting, take a razor and dig it into the rubber as far as it will go. You don't have to be exact, but try to make it vaguely rectangular. You can see the cuts I had made in the picture above.
After you've made your cuts, take a pair of needle-nosed pliers and rip out the rubber in little chunks.
All that's left is to stick it back onto the other half of the shoe. Rubber is a porous material and a few drops of super glue make a solid bond.
In some cases, the rubber may be too tall to fit back inside the case. If so, cut it down and make sure everything goes back where it was and close it up. You're done!
As with most homemade fixes, it's not permanent. This is the second time I've done this and my dremel worked great for about a week and a half of heavy dremeling. It will eventually need to be replaced, but for you die-hards that want to delay spending another $50, this write-up is for you.
Edited by BlackFox, 12 September 2008 - 01:15 AM.
