Tools That Are a Waste.

[dgbot]

Years ago I purchased a Jarmac 4 inch table saw.  A perfect waste of money.  Very underpowered and not very accurate.  My Minisaw from Preac had more power.  When Jim Byrnes came out with his saw I threw the Jarmac into the trash and forgot about it.

David B

[capnharv2]

At this time I think I'll include my brain under "tools that are a waste". . .

[JerseyCity Frankie]

The Draw Plate. For those unfamiliar a Draw Plate is a piece of metal with a series of tiny holes of diminishing size. You pull a piece of wood through each hole in succession and each hole makes the wood that much thinner until you reach the diameter your after.I almost hesitate to include my Draw Plate on the list of tools that are not worth the trouble. It could well be that I simply had unrealistic expectations for what it would allow me to do. It certainly can be used to make small spars smaller. But I was disappointed in that I had expected the tool to allow me to work faster and turn out spars quicker than my old method. The old method was to plane down a bit of square or round stock with a handheld block plane to a rough approximation of an octagonal cross section, then chuck this into my dremmel and pinch the turning spar with a handheld fold of sandpaper until I got the smoothness and thinness I was after. In trying to achieve the same result with the draw plate, I still have to prep the wood with the block plane and moving the wood from one drawplate opening to the next is very slow going. This may have more to do with poor technique on my part? But I find I’m often snapping my little spars before I get them to the size I am after. Its true I mangle a lot of spars I turn in my Dremmel, but not as many. Plus the dremmel allows me to put in some taper. I suppose the Draw Plate allows a degree of repeatable consistency but I find that for what I am doing the “old method” is better and I doubt I would have bought the draw plate if I had known what I know now.

[amateur]

Always thought that drawplates were mainly for producing treenails....

[vas1949]

I Bought a Draw Plate and I could never get it to work. What is the best way to use one?

 

Thanks

Vern

[JerseyCity Frankie]

Never having made a treenail I am not qualified to opine about using the draw plate but I bet it would work and provide consistent results but SLOW going. Hey there Vern, as I said above, to use the Draw Plate you shove or pull a very small dowel through the largest hole, which shaves off a bit of wood. You usually have to repeat this trip through the hole a few times before you get off enough wood for your now slimmer dowel to fit through the next smaller hole. My Draw Plate has 26 holes. You keep doing this till you get to the last hole and you have what amounts to a .020" diameter dowel. I have been working to a small scale so I was using my Draw Plate to make the lighter spars on square rigged ship models, but as I said I found it was actually better not to use the Draw Plate for this, for me it was more trouble than it was worth.

Edited April 14, 2013 by JerseyCity Frankie

[captainbob]

A drawplate is a jeweler’s tool that has been adopted by some model makers.  It is used to reduce the size of wire.  First the wire is annealed and tapered on the end.  It is then put into the large end of a hole and pulled through this is repeated until the wire is squeezed to the proper size.  My jeweler’s plate does not have a sharp edge at the holes because in sizing wire it is not necessary.

 

In dowel sizing you pull through from the small side of the tapered hole and shave the wood.  This can only be done if the edge of the hole is sharp. And like all cutting tools it needs to be kept sharp.

 

Bob

[Dan Vadas]

The Drawplate definitely doesn't qualify for this list - although some of the inferior quality ones probably do. I've used my Byrnes Drawplate to make over 25,000 bamboo treenails for my last two ships and it's still working perfectly. That's about 80 METRES of bamboo   .

 

It could well be that I simply had unrealistic expectations for what it would allow me to do.

 

 That's more to the point Frankie - you've tried to use it for a purpose it wasn't intended to do. Most timbers won't "draw" very well without snapping off in the smaller sizes. Also, the drawplate only makes parallel cuts - yards are tapered, so it's useless for attempting to shape them.

 

And like all cutting tools it needs to be kept sharp.

 

Bob - how do you sharpen a Drawplate without enlarging the holes   ?

 

  Danny

[capnharv2]

I've read that the way to sharpen a draw plate is to rub it on fine grit sandpaper or stone with the small holes against the paper/stone. The small holes should be flush on that side of the plate so it will sharpen the edge without changing the hole size. This assumed the hole is right on the surface and not dimpled in (like my unusable draw plate).

I can see the hole getting larger after lots of sharpening, but the increase in diameter should be very small for a long time..

 

Hope that helps.

 

Thanks,

 

Harvey

[Garward]

The same tool is pleasant to someone and approaches, to someone isn't present, it is a question especially individual.   

[fish]

Is there a difference between the Amanti plank bender and the Model-Expo one?  It doesn't look like it...

[JerseyCity Frankie]

Hey there Dan Vedes, what kind of wood are you using in your drawplate? Sorry if I gave the impression I was trying to taper spars in the Drawlplate, thats not what I was trying to describe. I contrasted the dremmel turning method, and its ability to taper, with the drawplate which can only produce untapered  spars or perhaps treenails.

[Dan Vadas]

what kind of wood are you using in your drawplate?

 

Bamboo. Actually, it's not a wood - it's a grass. The perfectly straight grain and it's toughness make it relatively easy to pull through a drawplate. It also accepts a stain to a certain degree - I give the piece to be drawn a wipe with Walnut stain before inserting the treenails - it gives them a more realistic appearance.

 

  Danny

[vas1949]

Thank you for the Information on the Use of the drawplate.

 

Best

Vern

[Dan Vadas]

I've read that the way to sharpen a draw plate is to rub it on fine grit sandpaper or stone with the small holes against the paper/stone. The small holes should be flush on that side of the plate so it will sharpen the edge without changing the hole size. This assumed the hole is right on the surface and not dimpled in (like my unusable draw plate).

I can see the hole getting larger after lots of sharpening, but the increase in diameter should be very small for a long time..

 

Hope that helps.

 

Thanks,

 

Harvey

 

Thanks for the tip Harvey. Actually, if you hold the drawplate nice and flat on the sandpaper the holes should all be enlarged by the same amount - that's not really a problem. You'd have to allow for this on the Byrnes drawplate which has the hole sizes marked next to them and simply shift to the next size smaller hole (or two) which would now be the correct size.

 

It would take quite a bit of sanding to get anywhere though - that Byrnes plate is VERY hard steel .

 

  Danny

[captainbob]

Thanks for the tip Harvey. Actually, if you hold the drawplate nice and flat on the sandpaper the holes should all be enlarged by the same amount - that's not really a problem. You'd have to allow for this on the Byrnes drawplate which has the hole sizes marked next to them and simply shift to the next size smaller hole (or two) which would now be the correct size.

 

It would take quite a bit of sanding to get anywhere though - that Byrnes plate is VERY hard steel .

 

  Danny

Danny,

 

I've never sharpened mine.  I use it for wire not wood but the sand paper sounds good.  As you said the holes would all enlarge the same.  Maybe someone should ask Byrnes.

 

Bob

Edited April 14, 2013 by Cap'n'Bob

[janet bode]

Hey whats the matter with you guys,as a retired designer i had to use both metric-imperial no sweat.

[grsjax]

In defence of Fair a Frame.  I agree that it isn't as usefull as it could be but I find it good for keeping the bulkheads straight on small models like Midwest's Sakonnet daysailer.  Biggest problem is that it is really to short and not strong enough to handle larger models.

[Chidokan]

tweezers. I hate them. they either fire the part I want half way into oblivion or dont grip/pick up where I want them to. I got passed a loom a line and yes they are useless...the pins need threading and the lower plate should be steel, then it might work... any tension and the pins just pop out.

 

As an engineer I sometimes have to deal with kilograms per square inch.... don't ask.

[NMBROOK]

I find the Brynes drawplate does exactly what it is supposed to do.To my knowledge this is the only drawplate designed to reduce the diameter of wood by cutting(I use boxwood)Other drawplates for jewellers purposes are designed to gradually reduce the wire diameter by forming,not cutting so these are not designed for wood.Two slightly different designs and you feed the material in the opposite way round.

 

Kind Regards 

 

Nigel

[lionfish]

tweezers. I hate them. they either fire the part I want half way into oblivion or dont grip/pick up where I want them to. I got passed a loom a line and yes they are useless...the pins need threading and the lower plate should be steel, then it might work... any tension and the pins just pop out.

 

As an engineer I sometimes have to deal with kilograms per square inch.... don't ask.

ive had that happen before, but ive found that soft tweezers, i.e, ones that dont take a lot of force to close, work a bit better. plus i tune my tweezers to grip at the tip, i just bend them. just my 2cents.

 

tools that are a waste or useless are any you dont use. i will say power tools bought from home depot are a waste, they basically tell companies how much they are going to pay for tools, as part of the deal they get so many free tools, and they tell the company to put through QC and pass any failed tool. i work for an industrial supplier and one of my customers was looking at a cordless drill, got a quote from me and one from home cheapo. they are charging less than what it takes my company to buy direct from the manufacturer. my customer was making a big about it so i made him a deal, he will buy the home cheapo tool, ill get direct from manufacturer. we will take both tools apart and look at the construction, if my tool isnt made better then i will pay to have both tools fixed, and give him mine for free. needless to say, when we took the tools apart he was shocked to see the difference, a lot more plastic is used in their tools, in mine was a lot of metal and well made parts. so he gets all of his brand name tools from us now. dont get me wrong buying a tool for cheap because you arent going to use it a lot or do anything demanding is fine. another customer bought identical tools one from me and the other from HD, after two years my tool is still going strong and the HD tool died after a year. granted both of these customers work in construction, but i think its the principal that sucks. companies making things cheaper and cheaper to stretch profit margins. anyway rant over, do we have an area just for tool and equipment reviews? or is it just the tools section?

[Julie Mo]

I worked in electrical construction for 34 years.  Contractors used to buy their tools from the supply houses.  With the advent of home centers, they started going there to save money.  On the first job I worked and for years after, Milwaukee was the go to electrical hand tool for electricians. There were no battery tools back then that could handle the demands of construction.  For threading pipe, it was Rigid that was the Cadillac.  Electricians and plumbers both used Rigid almost exclusively for heavy pipe work.

 

Once the battery tools were entering into the "construction ready" phase, I started to see DeWalt tools on the job.  Milwaukee drills and sawzalls started to vanish.  One carpenter foreman told me not that long ago that his company buys their installers a DeWalt drill and gives it to them to keep, figuring they will take better care of it.  But he added that those drills don't last much more than a year anyway.  So, they really are disposables.  I think a lot of contractors began to see tools that way.

 

Back in the 120v tool day, those tools would last for years, even decades.  I remember working with a Milwaukee right-angle drill that looked like it was the first one ever made.  But when purchased new, few homeowners or weekend warriors could have justified paying what those tools cost at the time.  The quality of the tools made today isn't what it used to be but neither is the price.

[Chuck]

Guys.....please quit with the metric vs. imperial bickering please.   It is what it is.....for Christs sake!!!!     Its like watching my kids argue about who would win in a fight......Superman or Batman........its beyond silliness and gets heated everytime.  I have deleted the last few posts because if read by anyone I can just see them shaking their heads...WOW!!!!!

 

Plus....we all know that after the alien invasion the entire world will have to convert over to fractenoids anyway!!!

 

 

Chuck

[jbshan]

Oh, Superman, definitely.

I suspect that there is no wasted tool.  Somebody, somewhere, will swear up and down it's his favorite tool, and somebody else threw it out after one try.

[Dan Vadas]

do we have an area just for tool and equipment reviews? or is it just the tools section?

 

 

Lionfish, here's your answer from the description in the "Modelling Tools and Workshop Equipment"  forum :

 

Tips on how to use a ship modeling tool, accessories and general discussion about their quality and usefulness.

 

 

  Danny

[lionfish]

Lionfish, here's your answer from the description in the "Modelling Tools and Workshop Equipment"  forum :

 

 

  Danny

thanks, some forums i know have an area specifically for reviews and have a forum to keep everything uniform and understandable.