I recently saw somewhere a link to a web site that sold everything you needed to do piercing as a kit. My problem is I can’t remember if it was on this forum or somewhere else. Anyone no the site I’m talking about? TIA
Paul
Paul
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Piercing set up
- Thread starter Paul Lajoie
- Start date
This might help. http://sazwa.org/pdf_files/DentalHandpiecesSuppliers.pdf
I didn't know there was general agreement among carvers on what the everything needed kit should contain 
.
Wood carvers supply seems to be a good starting point for investigation.
www.woodcarverssupply.com
. Wood carvers supply seems to be a good starting point for investigation.
www.woodcarverssupply.com
Another good source - https://www.treelineusa.com/gift-ideas
john lucas
AAW Forum Expert
Glad you posted this. I've been wanting a high speed carving set up for a long time it my budget is limited. Dont want to buy garbage. What are your recommendations. Ive.been saving so ready to make the jump.
You want to do it cheap. Here is a video by Captn Eddie on how to do it . I did and works great.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yy87r3RARfk
Treelineusa.com is the site m looking for. Wish I could remember what forum it was on. Thanks for the help
Paul
Paul
john lucas
AAW Forum Expert
I like Captn Eddie's idea. When I took a class from Binh Pho he showed us pencil style and the 90 degree style and let us use both. I thought I read somewhere that you could buy the Dental tools in both styles. I'll have to do my research.
John you can buy either style on eBay. The pencil style (high speed)is very expensive tho.
Paul
Paul, the best video IMO is by Glynn Cox called "Piercing On The Cheap" and is on youtube. I pieced my system together with the information in that video. As a compromise the 45 degree style hand piece is less expensive than the 90 degree. The 90 degree is actually made for wood piercing by NSK. From my understanding it has more torque. The 45 degree is for dental use, but mine is also made by NSK. After doing some I wouldn't wan the 20 degree style.You will want the ceramic bearings with a light. A two hole hand piece is all that is needed. I got the hand piece from Amazon, but had to get the attachment hose from China. At first I couldn't find a 5 micron filter, but HD carries one. I'll take some pictures of my setup later. I think I have about $120 in mine.
Thanks for the info Bill. The 90 degree speed is much higher than the 45 degree which supposedly gives you more control even piercing wood with lots of grain. Maybe I’ll look into a 45 degree tool for now. All I’m doing right now is piercing hollowed out billiard balls. Using a dremel tool. Works good but I’d like to eventually do some wood. Looking forward to your pictures. Thank you
Paul
Paul
Paul, here is my setup. I basically followed Glynn's guide except I did not drill and solder the hand piece to eliminate one of the two hoses. I used a needle valve instead for the air to blow away debris. The added hose is not a problem and I prefer my setup. Not sure about the speed you quoted. My hand piece turns 380,000 to 480,00 RPM and can't imagine the 90 degree turns faster. I'm sure it has more torque. This is a piece I pierced with my setup. BLM with African Blackwood top.
Thanks for the pix Bill, lot easier to seeing it then just explaining. I was under the impression the 45 degree handpiece was not a high speed unit. Good to know, it will be a lot cheaper to get started with a 45. Could up grade at a later date. So why are the 90’s so much more expensive?
Paul
Paul
john lucas
AAW Forum Expert
Did a real quick search this afternoon and there are a lot of 45 degree low speed.band pieces. I did t look to see how low a speed they were. I canceled my search for dental.grinders and put in high speed dental grinders and got better luck.
This is actually a NSK on eBay for $24.59 but off brands and at this price why not, are as low as 13.99. Mine is a NSK and have had it for several years. Don't do much piercing but it does work just fine. Also got a cheap regulator on eBay and a ball valve from HD or HF. Why worry about the filter , if it goes out is cheap to replace.Also as far as the second hole that is for water in dental setup and you can just ignore it.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/NSK-PANA-M...983021?hash=item1eec3608ad:g:B50AAOSw0INc2jog
One more thing on Burrs. A friend does lots of piercing and he tipped me to GoldBurs.com
https://www.ebay.com/itm/NSK-PANA-M...983021?hash=item1eec3608ad:g:B50AAOSw0INc2jog
One more thing on Burrs. A friend does lots of piercing and he tipped me to GoldBurs.com
john lucas
AAW Forum Expert
Ok gonna have to.sit down at the computer this afternoon and make.notes from.all.of this so I went lose it. To busy finishing learning up after the yard sale and getting ready for myndemos at the AAW symposium. Will look at setting up a system when I get back. I dont necessarily want it for piercing but plan to use it for carving or cleaning up.details in carving.
John, do you have a micro motor? It might be another option for cleaning up carving details. I have the Mastercraft and hand piece is very comfortable to use. I believe the dental burrs will also fit, but haven't tried them.
There are many options to a piercing setup. I definitely wanted the 45 degree hand piece over the 20 degree. I didn't feel the 20 degree would be comfortable. I think the 90 degree would be best, but comes with a price. I got my hand piece from Amazon and it was about $50. I wanted ceramic bearings and a light. It came with a spare turbine, so kind of like getting two hand pieces. The 5 micron filter was less than $10 from HD, so worth it to me if I extend the life of the turbine and some day will use that stand for air brush. I need to put the water separator ahead of the 5 micron filter. I initially was going to use a ball valve, but thought I would need to hold my stand when turning on and off. The toggle air valve was from ebay and less than $8. I really like the toggle on and off. You do need the 0-60 psi gauge as the regulator gauge is too course. Turbines do not like overspeed. Using the second hole to supply a small amount of air works well for blowing smoke and debris away. I use the FG169L and FG170L I get them from Dentalburdepot off ebay about $18 for 20 burs.
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Bill, have you ever changed the ceramic bearings? Or do you just replace the hand piece, seems like it might be cheap enough to replace the whole hand piece.
Paul
Paul, I have never changed bearings. I can only speculate that it is the turbine that will need changed and not the bearings. I say that because mine included a spare turbine. I haven't changed my turbine and don't need to yet. I have seen turbines for sale, but not bearings although I haven't looked.
Ok I finally found the handpiece and a couple components to set up my piercing. I’ve done quite a bit of research last few days, figuring what I need, also tried finding out how the speed is actually figured out. I’ve seen people claim from 280,000- 400,000. How’s is this determined? I know the amount of air pressure used helps determine it but there must be something else? Anyone?
Paul
Paul
You will find the speed and pressure in the handpiece manual. My manual states 0.2-0.25 MPa and 380,000 to 480,000 RPM. Pressure for mine equals ~29-36 PSI. I generally run mine about 34-35 PSI, knowing some pressure is going to the second hole. It will just depend on the handpiece you buy.
I did look at the spare turbine I got and it had the bearings installed. However in the Marketplace forum Glynn Cox had listed the NSK presto for sale where he replaced the bearings and where to get them. My original turbine is still working fine and still don't see a need to replace it.
I did look at the spare turbine I got and it had the bearings installed. However in the Marketplace forum Glynn Cox had listed the NSK presto for sale where he replaced the bearings and where to get them. My original turbine is still working fine and still don't see a need to replace it.
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@Glynn Cox is a member of my club and a forum member. I need to twist his arm to put his tutorial on this site. He is a super helpful guy and he even performed the modification to the handpiece connector for me.
There is one thing that I did differently. Although the five micron filter might be adequate if you have a clean tank and drain the water daily, you really need a coalescing filter downstream of the five micron filter. While most coalescing filters are expensive, I found the Arrow F500-02 coalescing filter for $58 from Pacific Air Compressors in Portland, Oregon. They also have an eBay store which is where I bought the filter. With a five micron prefilter the coalescing filter will last indefinitely.
There is one thing that I did differently. Although the five micron filter might be adequate if you have a clean tank and drain the water daily, you really need a coalescing filter downstream of the five micron filter. While most coalescing filters are expensive, I found the Arrow F500-02 coalescing filter for $58 from Pacific Air Compressors in Portland, Oregon. They also have an eBay store which is where I bought the filter. With a five micron prefilter the coalescing filter will last indefinitely.
First I want to thank everyone who has contributed to this thread, you’ve all been very helpfull! I went and ordered the handpiece, tubing and air switch all on EBay and all have arrived. Also picked up the air regulator from HF. I installed the tubing onto the handpiece to make sure the threads were the same, but it doesn’t thread on all the way. Is it normal to have a gap of approx. 1/8-1/4 between handpiece and tubing connector? Also does anyone use the handpiece for carving, not piercing? Again thanks for any and all info shared!
Paul
Paul
Paul you can maybe do some light carving but these are not designed for that . You could possibly do some surface clean up on edges but if you get too deep the bit will get stuck and that is the reason it is used for piercing very thin turnings. Also if doing light relief carving "might" work but there are better tools for that like a Micro Motor.
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Yes, it is normal. It drove me crazy for a while until I measure the depth of the hole, the height of the two tubes and the length of the connector. I also made a slight modification to the two holes in the connector because the two small tubes were hard to line up precisely with the connector. The mod was to simply flare the holes just a tiny bit using a countersinking bit. I also used a diamond hone to polish the flare so that there aren't any burs. I used canned air to blow out any metal dust.
The first picture shows the slight chamfer on the two holes. I used the countersink bit and "drilled" by twirling it between my thumb and forefinger. Probably not necessary, but I polished the chamfer with the diamond hone shown in the third picture. The diamond hone is for sharpening mortising chisels.
My connector was modified by Glynn Cox to provide a small amount of bleed air to the dental burr.
The second picture shows the air connector inserted into the handpiece. Notice that there is a small gap between the connector shoulder and the back of the handpiece.
The backshell isn't really necessary, but I think it might prevent breaking the barbed tube. It doesn't screw all the way to the handpiece.
Here is a close up showing the gap between the handpiece and the backshell.
It's not good for carving because the burrs won't survive much side load before they break. The pieces that you pierce need to be very thin ... Less than ⅛" thick. You can use them for writing and similar surface work. Keep in mind that the burrs burn the wood slightly.
Thanks Gerald, that’s what I was thinking on the carving. Not planning on doing some but figured get the question out of the way.
Thanks Bill, after retreading it on and off a couple times I figured that was normal but wanted someone with more knowledge to tell me. Still not sure I will modify the tubing connector, might try to do it the way William Rogers has done, see if I can find the parts.
Paul
William, any chance you remember what the threads are on the air switch or what specific fitting you used. Went to my local hardware store today looking for fittings, but could not find anything that was the correct thread size. May have to go to a regular ball valve. Gonna check HD next few days. Thanks
Paul
Paul, I’ll look today.
Paul, I used 1/8 NPT fittings in the one I have. From memory they only threaded in about 3 threads before becoming tight. Maybe got another two threads. Doesn’t leak and wrote it off to poor threads from mfg.
I just assumed it was metric and tried I think it was a M10 screw to see if it it fit maybe two threads. Check again when I go to HD. Thank you
Paul
Paul
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My pneumatic switch is 1/8 NPT or it might be NPTF (dryseal) since it isn't used with a thread sealant. The mating connector is an "L" with metal female threads that might be NPSF (straight dryseal). The other end of the "L" is a plastic push on connector for plastic tubing.
Here is more than you might want to know about pipe threads.
Here is more than you might want to know about pipe threads.
William do you remember what the chrome looking piece is/from? Have not found anything like it. Sorry for asking all these questions.
Paul
Paul, I think you are talking about the cross. It is just a 1/8 npt brass cross that is crome plated. I had this off of something, but you should be able to find a brass one.
Ask all the questions you want.