Dental drills for piercing

[Bob D]

I bought a Powercrafter at last year's symposium and use it for piercing. I am not happy with the high-pitched noise from this unit though and am considering going to a dental drill. These can be had on Ebay for as little as $50. My question is has anyone tried any of these and do they hold up? Powercrafter never responds to any emails concerning issues so I have given up on them.


Bob

 

[DOCworks]

I agree with the noise issue, but it does work well. Customer service I'm even less happy with as I paid for the router stand over a year ago and as of today 3 emails and 2 phone calls and I still don't have a part or my money back.

 

[TJ Hamilton]

Bob, I use a Buffalo Dental hand piece. Easy to control, came with regulator and foot control. I don't run it every day nor for very long at a time so can't comment on the long term; however I bought it new through friend who runs a couple dozen of them in his dental lab so I'm assuming their bullet proof.

Good turning, Tom

 

[Hal]

High speed dental drills have a high pithed sound as well. I use one. It's the same sound as when you are having teeth drilled, and when drilling wood, there is oftentimes a high pitched noise. I usually wear ear protection.

 

[Don Peek]

china hand piece

Bob, I have bought several of these on E-bay and so for they are good. I also have an NSK presto that I use most of the time. The China made hand pieces get used mostly for backup or classes.

 

[Bob D]

ebay drill

Don,

I bought one of the NSK style drills from Dentmart on ebay for $39. Will see how well it performs. I didn't order a connector yet- very pricey- but will see if I can make my own adapter. If I could find a source of a cheap NSK type 2 hole connector I would order one.

 

[Don Peek]

Handpiece connecter

Bob, This is what I use. The tubing is not the size you need to connect directlly to your regulater, so I CA tubing together to get the correct size. Hope this helps.
Don :cool2:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dental-Sili...028?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3a69cdc47c

 

[Bob D]

connector

Thanks Don,

Ordered one today and the price was great.

Bob

 

[Jim Keenan]

I bought a Powercrafter at last year's symposium and use it for piercing. I am not happy with the high-pitched noise from this unit though and am considering going to a dental drill. These can be had on Ebay for as little as $50. My question is has anyone tried any of these and do they hold up? Powercrafter never responds to any emails concerning issues so I have given up on them.


Bob

It seems that Don at Powercrafter is showing a pattern of ignoring existing customers. I ordered a new turbine for my Powercrafter on September 26th noting that I needed it sooner than later in order to finish a project for a gallery. I'm still waiting for the package to arrive. I asked him by phone message and email when he mailed it and if there was a tracking number. No response.
It would seem to me that there must be a standard of behavior by symposium venders and one standard should include customer service on items sold. These things are not cheap and the parts are proprietary to the unit. If we are unable to purchase replacement parts, the unit becomes a paper weight.
My feeling is that if a vendor demonstrates a continual pattern of poor behavior, they should not be invited back as a vendor. What are your opinions?

 

[Gynia]

Some of these vendors make the bulk of their sales at shows. It is also possible that something has happened in their life which prevents responding in a timely manner. If such a tool is a must have for the work you do then perhaps a backup tool should be in your arsenal. Get a cheap pencil die grinder from Harbor Freight for a backup. Certainly not as easy a tool to use as the one you are waiting parts for but you might be able to get some of your job done. The other great thing about a backup is that once you have one you often find that you never need it.

Mostly you shouldn't blame the vendor for your emergency.

 

[Jim Keenan]

Some of these vendors make the bulk of their sales at shows. It is also possible that something has happened in their life which prevents responding in a timely manner. If such a tool is a must have for the work you do then perhaps a backup tool should be in your arsenal. Get a cheap pencil die grinder from Harbor Freight for a backup. Certainly not as easy a tool to use as the one you are waiting parts for but you might be able to get some of your job done. The other great thing about a backup is that once you have one you often find that you never need it.

Mostly you shouldn't blame the vendor for your emergency.

Hi Gynia,
Just a quick response to your post. I was in the process of shrugging off the lack of response with the same thoughts as yours. I figured that perhaps something had occurred that did not allow a response until I read the posts from Bob D and DOCworks. Their experiences pretty much echoed my own. The most troubling one was from DOCworks where he purchased, paid for and never received an item. Over the course of a YEAR!!!, he sent three emails and two phone calls and never received a response. So it was easy to conclude that his lack of response to me was not an aberration, but rather a pattern.

I asked him two simple questions: When did he mail the package and was there a scan form which would allow tracking so I could follow up to see the status of the package. I don’t believe either of these questions were out of line and required simple answers.

Just as an aside, I owned and operated a small business for 35 years before retiring. My promise to my customers was to return any and all messages and if I failed to do so, I was either in the hospital or the morgue. Sometimes I knew the return of a message was probably not going to be a pleasant one. It is simply common courtesy to do so.

Another aside, I have 2 dremels, a foredom knock-off and the famous HF air grinder. Since I was doing a lot of piercing and cutting on my project, the tenfold difference in speed (35,000 RPM vs 350,000 RPM) makes the high speed drill the better tool for those purposes since it is significantly less affected by the grain. I am in the process of using the other tools but I expect it will take days instead of hours to complete the process because of the need to allow a little extra “room” for drift and all the extra sanding that will entail.

The third aside: I ordered the NSK today (ouch! 399.00) to replace the Powercrafter.

 

[Bob D]

follow up to original post

After posting the original question, I have received an NSK dental drill. After completing a week with Binh Pho and seeing the NSK Presto, I purchased it on the spot from Binh. I now use the Dental dril for stippling only. It was well worth the $39 with another $14 for the cable. It is convienent to have two tools set up.

The Presto is beyond compare for ease of use and control. Anyone who wants a used Powercrafter can buy mine for $200.


Bob Delio

 

[Jim Keenan]

Bob, This is what I use. The tubing is not the size you need to connect directlly to your regulater, so I CA tubing together to get the correct size. Hope this helps.
Don :cool2:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dental-Sili...028?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3a69cdc47c

My NSK arrived and I needed to connect the unit to my air source. Mine was a 3 holer and allowed for water which I didn't need. The turbine was sealed and my carver came with an extra turbine and swivel coupler. $399 at ebay. I suspect these are cosmetically challanged units since there was a little schmootz on the barrel. Not a problem for me.
I had a 1/4 NPT male to a 1/8 compressor male that I received with an airbrush sometime in the distant past but I couldn't find a link on the web. If someone wants to mimic my setup, you will need to combine a short nipple with a female to male adapter ot try to locate the fitting I used.
I eliminated the water option by putting a short piece of round toohpick into the "water" tube and then fashined the connector per the thumbnail picture using 1/2 id vinal tube and hose clamps. It works great and the air coming through the front vents keep the work area clear of debris. I connect it to an airbrush hose.

Sorry about the rust on the hose clamp, its all I had in the "parts bin".

 

[Jim Keenan]

Well…………..
Arriving in the mail yesterday from Powercrafter, Inc was a turbine and 2 bottles of lube. Ordered on September 26th. And mailed on November 23. A full 70 days after the order was placed and weeks after the charge to the credit card reversal. Numerous Phone messages and Emails went unanswered as did the reversal of the charge.

In the meantime, I found one (maybe the only one) at Razortip industries at a very premium price.

I suppose I should keep this one as a spare since it appears, according to some sources, that Powercrafter has not been manufacturing the tool for several years and apparently Don purchased all of the parts and continues to “service†LOL!!! the tool.

I suspect that if I kept the turbine and based upon his organizational skills, Don would probably never figure out he had not been paid, but I’m not built that way. I’ll send him a check for the purchase but this again is a heads up to be very careful when dealing with this outfit.

 

[Thomas Stegall]

Dental Drill

I have logged hundreds of hours using an NSK (primarily for texturizing) and have never had a problem with it regarding performance. I too got mine from Binh, and from he is very prompt in getting orders out.

As far as the high pitched sound; I hated it when I started using it and learned to put on some music when I use it. Not to overpower the sound, but simply to give me something else to focus on mentally. With a little time I got used to it and with music playing I am able to totally tune it out mentally.

 

[john lucas]

Has anyone tried the using the noise reduction headphones to cut out the whine of air tools. I find them extremely irritating.

 

[Donna Banfield]

Yes, but...

I have used a pair of those headphones when using the NSK Presto. My husband travels a lot, and listens to books on tape/mp3 players on planes. The spoken voice on these books is much harder to hear with the drone of airplane noises, so he uses noise reduction headphones that are worn by drummers in the studio when they're recording. They work great at reducing the background noise.

The problem that I encounter when trying to wear then is that they don't seal quite as well if you wear glasses - in my case my safety glasses are just a little wider around the side of the face. They also don't work as well if you're wearing a pair of magnifier glasses. So I just use those disposable foam sponge type ear plugs. They work fine at cutting out that very high pitch, but I can still 'hear' what else might be going on - like if someone walks into the shop, or the dogs are getting into something they shouldn't

 

[Thomas Stegall]

If the dogs are getting into something it usually results in a lack of noise. When things get too quiet I know its time to investigate.