I decided to buy one and it came today in the mail. Here’s a little review of it so far:
PROs:
Small size. I fits in the palm of my hand and easily in my tackle box
Light weight. Maybe a pound.
Slow speed. I read the RPM’s are around 450. Much slower than a Dremel.
Takes bits from 1 mm to 3 mm with two collets included
As a saftey lock for the trigger.
As a shafty stopper for changing bits.
Runs on two AA batteries.
Easy to lubricate since it’s a kit (see below).
CONs:
It’s acutally a kit you have to put together. Took me about 30 minutes.
The gears are plastic but not like soft plastic. Seems very tough and durable.
Only has one speed (see above).
The motor in the drill is from a 4 wheel drive R/C car. It should be plenty powerful with enough torque. I drilled a few holes in some 3mm thick plastic with a 1 mm bit and a 3 mm bit. The holes were perfect!! Much better than if I used a pin vise. The holes were smooth, nice and round all of the way through, and no melting at all. The drill didn’t bog down, slow down or bind at all.
For $12.99, I’m extremely happy with my purchase. I can see this drill being much easier to use than a Dremel. Corded Dremels can be bulky to work with and you need a seperate speed control so that you don’t melt the plastic. The cordless Dremels are just too fast. The only question I have to answer is the long term durable of the drill. We’ll see…
If you have questions or comments let me know.
Jesse
PS. I order the Tamiya Handy Router yesterday. We’ll see how that is.
I guess it depends on how delicate you want to go. I won’t drill out machine gun barrels with it (that’s why I have a pin vise), but I don’t see any problems with drilling out portholes on 1/700 scale ships. It’s very easy to handle since most of the weight of the drill rests in the palm of your hand. On a regular drill, most of the weight is balanced above your hand.
The only good way to get a Dremel to slow down is to purchase the single speed Dremel and use a speed control. Dremel made a table top control unit that can still be found on Ebay. I had one. The only problem I saw was that the RPM’s were inconsistent at slow speeds; sometimes a little too fast, sometimes a little to slow. Dremel also makes a foot speed control device. If you’re doing delicate work and you foot slips - watch out. Some people have made speed control devices out of light dimmer switches but I’ve heard there is drop in torque with them. Dremels warns against using speed control devices with their variable speed rotary tools as the speed control device can prematurely wear down the tool. Why Dremel has never made a rotary tool the runs at slow speed is beyond me.
Dremel never made a low speed tool because it’s original intention is for household work, not model building. You could check with micromark or harborfreight as they tend to gear themselves towards the hobbyist.
You can make a simple lowspeed dremel using nothing more than a potentiometer, the simplest version of which, is a dimmer switch. But the reason the dremel loses torque is because your cutting the amperage. A potentiometer is nothing more than a variable resistance device. It’s like using a power drill with a half dead battery. It turns slower, but also has no torque.
I’d be interested in hearing any updates about this handy drill after a month or so, like about reliability and build quality. Sometimes using the pinvise can be a bit tedious.
Been using my dremel with the separate speed control for about 15 years now…still running strong. The addition of a goose-neck flexible attachment makes for an easy-to-control tool that sees plenty of action.
Yeah, I used to have one too. The problem now is that I work on the kitchen table. Unfortunately, like a lot of modelers, I don’t have a dedicated modeling area. Corded drills can be a real pain in that situation. The Tamiya Handy Drill fits nicely in my tackle box that I use to store my modeling tools. It kind of makes sense that Tamiya came out with this small drill. Space is a premium in Japan. I know. I used to live there. I’m sure many modelers in Japan don’t have a seperate room for modeling, just like me.