My friend and machinist mentor and I bought a hole making EDM many years ago out of a guys basement for $200.
My friend made lots of stuff with it, but one of the coolest was screwdriver hex bits designed to remove the tamper proof screws in Microtech knives. They were so good that Microtech used his screwdriver bits in production for several years. Now they sell their own screwdriver bits.
He bought a much nicer die sinker edm and he passed this edm off to me.
In this video you can see it in action, set up on my ancient drill press.
My friend recommended distilled water, but i started out with regular well water for experimentation. I started out recirculating the water....why? No idea...pretty dumb idea. It's water.
This was my first successful burn. You can see that the dirty well water caused erosion around the hole. The burn was very intermittent with a lot of retractions. It took two hours to get through this 1/4" tool bit. Medium setting. Used about 5 gallons of water. 1/8" hollow brass electrode.
Then I tried a piece of carbide with dirty recirculated water....more later.
So. I drove 18 miles to Walmart and bought distilled water. It took a bit to get the burn started with distilled water, but once it got going, the burn was almost continuous. It took 30 minutes to start to break through the bottom. The old edm tends to get slightly confused as it break through. It wasted another 6 minutes finally busting through completely. Used approximately 1 1/2 gallons of water.
Freakin amazing.
This is the cemented carbide I burned. The big ugly hole took 2 1/2 hours and I fought with it. The constant retractions and long burn just destroyed the hole.
The perfect circle was medium setting with distilled water. The carbide ate about an inch of electrode. I ran out of electrode before i broke through so I had to stop. It took 50 minutes. Used around 1 gallon of distilled water. It cut so beautifully.
I'm working on buying some electrodes of different sizes for burning out taps. Both copper and brass.
I learned a ton. It was so exciting to see it run well. Now I'm slowly starting to get a feel for getting a nice continuous burn. I look forward to the challenge of burning out my first tap.
I'm going to look for a floor standing drill press with a large table to leave the edm set up. On my old drill press I really only have 8'-10" to work with.
I'm super happy so far.
My friend made lots of stuff with it, but one of the coolest was screwdriver hex bits designed to remove the tamper proof screws in Microtech knives. They were so good that Microtech used his screwdriver bits in production for several years. Now they sell their own screwdriver bits.
He bought a much nicer die sinker edm and he passed this edm off to me.
In this video you can see it in action, set up on my ancient drill press.
My friend recommended distilled water, but i started out with regular well water for experimentation. I started out recirculating the water....why? No idea...pretty dumb idea. It's water.
This was my first successful burn. You can see that the dirty well water caused erosion around the hole. The burn was very intermittent with a lot of retractions. It took two hours to get through this 1/4" tool bit. Medium setting. Used about 5 gallons of water. 1/8" hollow brass electrode.
Then I tried a piece of carbide with dirty recirculated water....more later.
So. I drove 18 miles to Walmart and bought distilled water. It took a bit to get the burn started with distilled water, but once it got going, the burn was almost continuous. It took 30 minutes to start to break through the bottom. The old edm tends to get slightly confused as it break through. It wasted another 6 minutes finally busting through completely. Used approximately 1 1/2 gallons of water.
Freakin amazing.
This is the cemented carbide I burned. The big ugly hole took 2 1/2 hours and I fought with it. The constant retractions and long burn just destroyed the hole.
The perfect circle was medium setting with distilled water. The carbide ate about an inch of electrode. I ran out of electrode before i broke through so I had to stop. It took 50 minutes. Used around 1 gallon of distilled water. It cut so beautifully.
I'm working on buying some electrodes of different sizes for burning out taps. Both copper and brass.
I learned a ton. It was so exciting to see it run well. Now I'm slowly starting to get a feel for getting a nice continuous burn. I look forward to the challenge of burning out my first tap.
I'm going to look for a floor standing drill press with a large table to leave the edm set up. On my old drill press I really only have 8'-10" to work with.
I'm super happy so far.
