How to use your foredom foot control with the reciprocating hand piece

[Al Craven]

This idea or tip may have already been tried. When using the H50 reciprocating hand piece I cut a small piece of wood roughly 1/2 inch thick and laid it between the base of the foot paddle and the paddle, the part that moves. When you push the foot paddle all the way down, your at about 4000 rpm. I have a gage to show rpm. Depending on wood type, you can increase or decrease rpm's by cutting a thinner or thicker piece of wood. Another idea! would be to drill a hole at one corner of the foot paddle and install a threaded rod. I just recently tried the piece of wood and it works. Cant afford the $80 controller right now.

[Donsexton]

I don’t have a Foredom reciprocating hand piece but I do have more than a few reciprocating carvers and I cant figure why I would want to crank down the RPM’s when you and control the depth of cut by how hard you maneuver the hand piece. I guess they work differently from an Automach.

[Inadv]

Al,

Sounds like dad's version of a "governor" that he used on the ole truck when I was learning to drive. He tied a block of wood under the accelerator pedal with bailing wire to keep me from going too fast. I'd have likely never thought to use the trick that way. Good idea! Thanks for posting.

L.P.

[Al Craven]

Thanks for the feed back. My main objective was to keep the hand piece form getting to hot and i think 10,000 rpm is the max on the H50. I cut one piece of wood and fitted it under the foot paddle yesterday and recorded 9200rpm, just push the peddle down as far as you can and not worry about running over your 10,000 rpm's. Next best thing to the dial controller and cheaper!