proFeign
Cast Iron
- Joined
- Oct 2, 2007
- Location
- Santa Barbara, CA
howdy all,
i'm a recently graduated mechanical engineer with about 2000 hours of time in the school machine shop and other shops and I was wondering if there was a consensus about which scribe/scribe type was best for general apron-pocket use...
i've only ever used cheapo generic carbide scribes and I just broke the shank on the cheapo one I've been using. it lasted two days. it was a "general" brand one and the aluminum shaft the tip was pressed into was hollow and not really up to the job.
anyway i'd be happy to spend $30 on a good one with replaceable tips, especially if there's a good retractable one that isn't all sloppy because it's not rigid. also is diamond a bad idea for general scribing of Al and SS? I won't be mean to it but the diamond tools i've used always break or chip eventually, and usually pretty fast, and carbide is plenty hard for most of what i do, except it's pretty borderline on the super-hardened steels i occasionally have to mark. but i doubt diamond would live long enough for metal scribing to make it worth the aggravation.
i'm worried that the retractable ones will wobble around, which shouldn't be a big problem if they built it well but might be a problem on a cheapo that's like a crappy ballpoint with a scribe in place of the ink.
anyway, i'll spend the money on a good one, but if they're all pretty much the same i should probably just buy a bunch of cheap ones (this is what i do with various things like 6" flexible rules since they get lost) and just consider them a consumable...
any thoughts?
i'm a recently graduated mechanical engineer with about 2000 hours of time in the school machine shop and other shops and I was wondering if there was a consensus about which scribe/scribe type was best for general apron-pocket use...
i've only ever used cheapo generic carbide scribes and I just broke the shank on the cheapo one I've been using. it lasted two days. it was a "general" brand one and the aluminum shaft the tip was pressed into was hollow and not really up to the job.
anyway i'd be happy to spend $30 on a good one with replaceable tips, especially if there's a good retractable one that isn't all sloppy because it's not rigid. also is diamond a bad idea for general scribing of Al and SS? I won't be mean to it but the diamond tools i've used always break or chip eventually, and usually pretty fast, and carbide is plenty hard for most of what i do, except it's pretty borderline on the super-hardened steels i occasionally have to mark. but i doubt diamond would live long enough for metal scribing to make it worth the aggravation.
i'm worried that the retractable ones will wobble around, which shouldn't be a big problem if they built it well but might be a problem on a cheapo that's like a crappy ballpoint with a scribe in place of the ink.
anyway, i'll spend the money on a good one, but if they're all pretty much the same i should probably just buy a bunch of cheap ones (this is what i do with various things like 6" flexible rules since they get lost) and just consider them a consumable...
any thoughts?