I was looking into an illuminated work station and saw the Tamiya Work Stand offered. I have used the Optivisors but they sometimes give me a headache. Anyone have experience with the Tamiya product?
No but I know the exact one your talking about. I found that to be interesting too. Hopefully someone has one or used on previously so they can provide some feedback on it.
I’ve seen that stand and it looks pretty cool. However, I have a dedicated workbench and don’t see much use in it for me.
Having said that I can see where it might be a nifty little “portable” that you could use to model while watching TV or a movie with the family.
I currently have a large plastic serving tray I use in this way. The downside its all flat and no place to place a bottle of paint or glue, paint brushes, files, knives, etc to keep them from sliding around.
It sounds like the feature that really interests you is the lamp and magnifier. There are other lamps, magnifiers, and combo lamp/magnifiers, so those could be considered also.
thanks for the help. I may go to office Depot to see what magnifying systems they have. Any other sources?
I got my lamp with a fluorescent ring lamp and large magnifier from Menards, a building supply store (have seen similar stuff in Lowes and Home Depot).
I had a Tamiya Work Stand. I liked it. It had some real good features. The squares in the back are great for holding Tamiya paint bottles. I really liked the little tray in the middle for holding water for decals. Also, there are slots around the outside to hold Tamiya’s clamps. I liked that too. The optics were really good.
On the downside, the price is a little steep I think. I received mine as a gift so no big deal. You don’t get the cutting mat or the clamps or a power source with it. You can use batteries or buy an adapter. The biggest issue was the lights. They aren’t very bright and after a few months, they began to fail. Strange since they are LEDs. I read that others had the same issue.
Size-wise, I would say this Work Stand is good for armor, 1/72 aircraft, 1/700 ships or car models.
I no longer have mine because I tried to replace the bulbs and really muffed things up. Therefore, I got rid off it.
-Jesse
I have a stand up led lamp head that looks like the lamp head on this item. (the stand is different)
Mine also failed after a short time.
Traced the problem to the itty bitty wire from the bulb package broke off the positive side of the connection in the battery compartment.
It was quite a pain to fix as the wire and connection point were very tiny. Also surround by the plastic case.
I bought one like this from Harbor freight over a decade ago and it still going:
www.harborfreight.com/fluorescent-magnifying-lamp-60643.html
There’s is also a 20% off online coupon code on their homepage.
The Tamiya work station works well w/ figure modes.
If price is prhibitive, you can use a small pre-cut sheet of plexiglass and some PVC pipe connectors (edges are rounded and they come in a ton of sizes) attached to the plexiglass with PVC cement. The pipe connectors hold paintbrushes and paint bottles well, I even got a huge one to hold my plastic cup of paint thinner. I also glued on one of those little snap cases that travel sewing kits used to come in to hold razor nd X-Acto blades. The plexiglass makes a great cutting surface and the whole thing probabaly cost me about $15 to make and took all of 5 minutes. I think I spent more time playing with potential layouts than I did gluing stuff down.
Groot