you need to be wary of cheap clamps. I have seen a cheap malleable iron
C clamp that gave up in the middle of the back of the C section. Nice
grain structure evident but not much evidence of any malleable nature.

Dave Mundt wrote:

Greetings and Salutations...

On Tue, 10 Feb 2004 13:38:15 -0000, "John Manders"
wrote:

My first set of cheap drill was many moons ago. I was drilling through a
piece of steel when the bit broke through and jammed. I did the usual
freeing bit and finished drilling the hole OK. Came to put the drill away
and it looked sort of funny. It was still straight but had twisted in the
middle 1/3rd of the flutes. I had a drill whose flutes started right hand,
converted to left hand and then went back to right hand. The edge was still
sharp and it still cut OK. Looked really weird though.

John


Yea, I posted a long time ago about one of MY experiences with
dirt cheap drillsets. In this case, I was trying to drill about a
1/8" hole through some oak. It went through, but, was a struggle,
and, when I pulled the drill out, I was surprised to find that a chunk
of the spiral was reversed! Needless to say they all went in the
trash...although now, I kind of regret not keeping the partially
reversed one.
While there are areas where it is great to save money (clamps,
for example) it is a waste of money and time to buy cheap cutting
tools. Good drills, etc, will cut more accurately, longer and
better, with less force, than cheap.
Regards
Dave Mundt