G’day - an’ hush ma mouf!! Told you I didn’t know all that much -
perhaps now you believe me! You see, New Zealand is a very small
country really, and our busy manufacturers can’t make everything here
the market isn’t big enough to make many things pay. There is only
one supplier of jewellery tools for a start. We even have to
subsidize our steel industry. So one never sees an awful lot of things
here that seem to be commonplace in bigger countries. So many thanks
to all those who took time and sent me enlightening about
solid tungsten carbide drill bits. I still would have thought that
they would be too brittle. I have used the tipped drills for years in
lapidary and many other things, and they work well; I’ve even tipped
lathe and other tools myself. But still haven’t seen solid carbide
drills! Thanks again to everyone. And cheers of course. John Burgess
John, If you are not familiar with Harbor Freight Tools in California,
you can request a catalog from their website. The stuff they have will
make your heart go pitter-patter and their prices are insanely low.
For instance, they have a set of 50 (count them 50) SOLID CARBIDE
micro-bits, down to size #80 for $12.99!!! The first address is for
their Homepage. The second is for the carbide microbits.
Cheers from Camelot West a.k.a. Sunny San Diego…BOB
WILLIAMS
Hi Gang, Not to be a wet blanket, but, many times the quality of the
HF stuff is lower than the price. Unless your only going to use the
item once or twice or are willing to spend the money to purchase a
quality tool when the HF tool doesn’t work; it may be best to see the
actual tool before you buy it. Some of the stuff HF sells isn’t worth
taking out of the store. Then again, sometimes they’ve got really
good buys. Glad there’s a local HF store where the goods can be
checked before purchasing.
In HF’s favor though, they have a very good return policy. I’ve never
had a problem returning something that’s be less than satisfactory.