Product Review: Dremel 8000

Hey everyone!  It's not too often that I do product reviews, but I felt that I should take a minute to tell you about my absolute favorite tool in my arsenal, my cordless Dremel 8000. You can pick one up on amazon for about $70 USD with free shipping, about half the MSRP for this beast.  If you plan on doing any conversion work, big or small, I highly recommend buying one.  It can be used for removing mold lines if you have a steady hand, but more useful is it's ability to grind through tough spots of pewter and plastic.

It can be an intimidating tool at first, and if you're nervous to bring it near your precious, then I suggest taking some time and trying out the different bits and how they cut on a piece of sprue to get some practice.  Try just gently grinding off the numbers imprinted on the sprue, or carving out a specific shape, the more practice the better.

The bit I use the most often looks like this:

I basically use it for grinding out any areas of plastic or pewter that I need, and is roughly the same size as the neck socket of most citadel miniatures, making it very convenient for doing head swaps on single piece miniatures (I'm looking at you, Valhallans!).

Aside from grinding out heaps of material, the tool also makes pinning a breeze, so if you're someone that has big models constantly falling apart (big old metal minis) because you hate twisting that pin vice for an hour, you really should consider using a power tool instead.

If you plan on getting a Dremel, then the first thing I would suggest buying is an adjustable collet.  It will make life easy and you don't need to worry about losing your key, or the various different sized collets.

I hate to sound like a salesman, but seriously, if you do any amount of converting, or like your big pewter figures, I highly suggest investing in one of these bad boys, you wont regret it.