Thanks for the excellent review.

I have had a cheap Chinese rotary tool for many years, but only recently have been using it to any degree. I find that it is a great adjunct to a lathe, and is great to adding texturing and other surface decorations to turnings. I’ve had a lot of fun carving spiral coves in wine stoppers using the very helpful flex shaft.

The colored ‘bits’ are abrasive stones – red (coarse) and white (fine) are aluminum oxide, and gray is silicon carbide. There are also blue bits made by Foredom from a ceramic material that last longer than either the pink or gray stones, but also cost more. They are mainly used for grinding metal, but can be used for smoothing wood or on gem stones.

Thanks, been thinking of one, good info. Something funny with my utube won’t let me do a thumbs up, so add one from me.

Hi Paul, overall a good review and the idea of doing a review after actually using the tool is something that I wish other reviewers would do. So well done mate. I still have my cheapie Workzone one, which is still ok for what I want. I would say that 90% of the attachments you get with these tools are pants, but as a fellow turner I would strongly advise getting what is called a Saburr Tooth Burr. They are the biz for removing wood, you can get various shapes and sizes……………………….but they are expensive, they cost about £15 (average) each. I have a green one (coarse) and a yellow one (fine). When my Workzone rotary tool packs up (the rotary extension cable has already broken) I will consider a Dremel. So thanks for the review.

Good review!

Excellent review Paul. I have two of the 3000 series, the first one died at about 14 months, motor burned out ( looking back probably because I gave it the beans too often – oops !). The second one has been trouble free over two years. I have both the circle cutting jig & the router conversion, the latter comes as a clear shroud that surrounds the body higher up, makes it look & feel like a proper router, & helps so you can see where you’re going. Haven’t seen the black version before. I guess you gets what you pays for, the quality of build is excellent, my first gave up probably to me being a trifle “hard on it”. One recommendation from me is making sure you blow any dust that gets into the machine well and truly out before putting it back into storage case.
Enjoy & as always, best regards.

Geof