Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Product Review: Dremel Stylus


After years of not having a dremel I decided to go out shopping and I found this bad boy. I messed around with the display model at Sears and just knew I had to have this. I owned an older model of the dremel and never really thought it applied well to the hobby. I'm now a changed man.

First thing about this is the fit in the hand. It's perfect for the hobbyest and person who wants to use it on small fragile things. The old linear model is great for deburring metal or cutting a copper pipe, but if you want to grind the shoulder pad edging off, its a little clunky to wield.

Secondly, the speed adjustment is a 1-10. This thing will turn incredible slow (for a dremel). Its almost as slow as a drill at half speed. I know also, that micromark sells very small colettes (and other must haves for the hobby) and I'm ordering one to hold my tiny drill bits.

Lastly, the docking station is cool as well. It has a lot of storage for little bits and the way the dremel fits in the station you can leave your bit in there and not worry about it falling and getting broken. I can't tell you how many times when I was using my big-ass drill I set it down wrong and snapped the bit off. (for those of you gasping at using an electric drill to pin and not a pin vise...I have way better things to do than hand drill 10 holes in pewter model to fit all the legs and tail of a carnosaur together with pins.)

One other thing, in case you were curious, the button on top is on and off. You don't need to hold it, its a click on and click off button.
This thing is a must for the more advanced hobbyist. I'm so happy with it. I haven't had it long enough to determine if the battery life is garbage, but its lithium ion, so I trust it.


5 comments:

  1. I've been looking at this particular model of Dremel for a few years. It is definitely a must have item for hobbyists and modellers. Another option to look into if you have an older linear style Dremel is their 'cord' attachment, which allows you to attach it to the colette adapter, and gives you a few feet of cord to attach the bit/colette to for working with.

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  2. Looks pretty cool. I've got normal dremels so probably won't go for this for a while, but it is definitely something to think about.

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  3. I use the linear Dremel tool, currently. The 1-10 speed intrigues the bajeebus out of me, I may have to look into getting this.

    Question, though. It looks battery powered, if so, does the docking station charge it? Or do you have to take out the battery and plug it into the wall? The latter is a PITA with my current Dremel.

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  4. The only thing that turns me off is the part about it being battery powered. Do you get a lot of power from it, CVinton? I have had bad experiences with battery powered dremels - especially when working with pewter.

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  5. Lantz-
    It is battery powered and the docking station charges it without having to remove the battery. For some people I see this as a positive, however it means the battery isn't interchangeable so when you're out of juice you'd have to wait for it to charge up again vs. have your back up battery (if you have one) ready to go.

    OST- I didn't have it charging for a few days so I couldn't finish the job, but after cut the arms off several pewter ork bits, I got about 3/4 of the way done with cutting Lincoln out of a penny. It'll bog down on the lowest setting but if you put it up to 10 it'll eat that pewter up.

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