This is a good review that you've presented. The Foredom rep's explanation
is easy to accept, and Foredom at least, has some interest in their tools
providing good performance and value.

I suppose you may have already considered making your own high speed
spindles, which may be an option. At very high speeds, proper bearing
lubrication becomes a fairly important issue, although the load forces you
would be applying probably aren't extremely unreasonable for small bearings
in that size range.

Reliable (long life) high speed spindles with an accurate spindle chuck are
somewhat specialized items, such as tool post grinders.

--
WB
..........


"Bob La Londe" wrote in message
...
I recently commented about how impressed I was with the hand pieces that
came with the Harbor Freight flex shaft motors. No noticeable side play by
chucking up a cutter and pushing it side to side.

Hoping to step up a notch I bought a couple Foredom 44T hand pieces. I
was disappointed. The definitely have side play by the same test. I
contacted Foredom and complained. Their explanation was that the 44T and
43T hand pieces are intended to be used as a hand held tool, and if they
crank them down to get side play down in the .0015 range (which would be
acceptable for what I want to use them for) they would generate way to
much heat to be comfortable to hold. That actually makes sense and its
one of the complaints I read in the reviews of the Harbor Freight hand
piece. It gets too hot to hold when run at max speed for very long.

Kevin at Foredom is sending me a 25 hand piece to evaluate at no cost. If
I like it I just send him my 44Ts and when I am ready, buy another 25.
The price step is quite a bit though. The 44T can be had for about $50,
while the best price I have seen on the 25 is $135. The 25 is listed as a
"continuous production" hand piece.

The heat of the HF hand piece was not that big of a deal for me since I
was using them in aluminum mounting clamps made out of 1/2 bar stock. I
didn't feel the heat, and the aluminum clamps helped to bleed off some of
the heat they generated.

My over all opinion of Foredom customer service however is very high. I
did not expect such a fantastic response from them. I will abuse the 25
as soon as it arrives and see how it performs, and if I am happy with it I
will buy another one. The 25 is a little larger diameter than the HF or
the 44T so I either need to bore out my clamps or make new ones. I think
I'll make some new ones because building the "prototypes" for the HF hand
pieces and using them to make some parts showed me some flaws in my
design. I need a squaring brace/block directly between the two clamps if
I want them to easily be able to mount on the machine and maintain
relative position accurately.