Tamiya Electric Handy drill - yay or nay ?

[mkhulu]

http://www.tamiyausa.com/product/item.php?product-id=74041

Seems a pretty cool gadget or will a pin vice suffice ? (it rhymes )

thanks - chocks away Ginger !

[Hobbes]

There's a brief review here: http://forum-of-doom.com/index.php?topic=13050.0

Haven't used it, but I'm tempted. A pin vise will drill through plastic in no time, so you don't really need it. But at the moment I use a cordless drill on my models on occasion, both for drilling and with other Dremel accessories (e.g. milling bits). I don't know if the chuck on this device is big enough to accept those, though.

[Weaver]

I like the idea of a low-powered, low-speed drill. I've got a cheap Dremel clone and 9/10 times it's too damn powerful, always a slip away from melting the plastic with a sanding tool or drilling too far. Having said that, I find the hand-operated Archimedes-screw-type pin vice of the most pleasing and accurate modelling tools on the bench....  

[Steel Penguin]

I was going to post the same link as Hobbes..
  great minds an all that

[rallymodeller]

Re low speed: probably the best purchase I ever made was my dental drill (an Osada Beaver XL). It has infinitely variable speed from 0-40,000 RPM and is dead strong at low speeds; I can (and have) drilled metal at about 100 RPM. The issue I have with Dremels is that they are next to useless when it comes to styrene as even the low setting on the five-speed ones is too fast, and the variable ones are weak at low RPMs. The Tamiya one seems just the trick, and if I didn't already have the Osada (I got it for stupid cheap from a family denturist friend along with about 150 bits) I'd definitely get one.

[beowulf]

i think i will pass on the tamiya one..................if i cant do it with a pinvice i have an old cordless drill with a proper chuck and speed controlled trigger.......its so old, small and underpowered its useless for use as a proper drill (been replaced several times over, over the years) but for styrene its perfect

[mkhulu]

cheers all - top class