Review the latest product from HobbyZone.
Polską wersję tego artykułu znajdziesz w tym miejscu.
In the recent months my
atelier has grown tremendously. In particular, I got myself a great number of new
paints and all sorts of modeling effects. A few months ago I decided to
organize my place of work and take control over the progressing chaos. This is how
it looked like at that point:
I feel ashamed to show you everything, but my drawers were full of paints,
and on the shelves and top of the closet I was stocking various types of boxes with
chemicals. What my workplace apparently needed was a sort of hanging organizer which would fit all the
types of paints I have. Unfortunately I could not find anything like this
anywhere. Since I already possessed a professional Paint Station from
HobbyZone, and I was very pleased with it, I turned to them and asked if they
have plans to implement some sort of hanging organizers. It turned out they
have something like this on their minds and that they are eager to listen to my
suggestions and comments on how it should look like. With this I actively took
part in designing the final product and was able to test first prototypes. Below
I present you with a possibly objective review of the product, which already
had some small imperfections corrected.
Final product, in order to
minimize the possibility of damage during transportation, is sold in parts to
be assembled. The following pictures show how it is packed.
 |
| The product package. |
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| The product package. |
As you see the packaging is
not beautifully designed but it does its job. Reliably protects the product.
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| The product package. |
In the package we find all of
the hanger parts evenly arranged plus a manual describing the assembly. Parts
seem to be quite delicate, but in my case have not been damaged.
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| Inside the package. |
The hanger construction
consists of 16 elements.
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| 16 parts. |
The manual in several simple
steps describes how to built the hanger. Improtantly - to assemble a solid
whole, PVA glue type will be required. Glue is not included in the set.
So I started assembling the
rack. At that stage I had some doubts over the method of hanging the rack on
the wall. After closer analysis though, it turned out that it is completely
safe, well thought and reliable.
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| Part of the wall assembly. |
As you can see in the
following close-up, all the elements of the rack fit each other precisely. Individual
shelves of the rack however, are made of relatively thin MDF and one should not
use excessive force to join them.
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| Part of the wall assembly. |
In 10 minutes, without any
problems I got the rack in one piece. Its construction seems quite clever, the
manual though is an essential element of the flawless and stress-free assembly.
Evan though, as mentioned earlier, individual shelves seem delicate, after the
assembly the whole structure of the rack becomes stable. At this point I put
the stand aside in a safe place so that the glue could dry. I used the time to
drill holes in the wall for the pins to the rack hanging.
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| Assembled rack. |
The rack is available in two
versions:
- with shelves adjusted to "Vallejo type" paint bottles, a diameter of 26mm
- and a universal one for containers of different manufacturers
- and a universal one for containers of different manufacturers
I hung
first two racks on the wall of my atelier and filled them with paint containers
for a test. My official
tester-assistant – Maciek – liked them immediately:)
Below are pictures of the
racks, filled with all kinds of products I had in my workshop
As you can see in the picture
below the universal hanger is indeed a “universal” one. I put in it without any
problems the following products:
- Citadel paints (Games
Workshop) in new containers,
- Citadel paints (Games Workshop) in the old, larger containers,
- P3 paints,
- Tamiya paints,
- Revell Aqua Color paints,
- Revell primer in bottles,
- Vallejo effects w małych pojemniczkach.
The only thing that did not
fit into the shelves of the universal stand are new bottles of Vallejo's washes. Shelves in this rack are placed at a slight angle, so that the
containers can not fall out too easily.
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| Uniwersal rack. |
The second type of the rack is
intended only for paints in small bottles with a diameter of 26mm. It is capable
to comfortably accommodate 55 bottles (with a small gap in each row). There is
no way that the paints could fall out.
 |
| Rack for 26mm bottles. |
At this stage, I was happy
with the result, but I was still lacking space for some of my paints! Thankfully
guys from HobbyZone have foreseen a situation in which there will be no room
for additional racks hanging horizontally and made it possible to elegantly hung
them vertically!
Each rack has an indentation
on the bottom allowing to fit in the rack hanging below. Pictures will show you
exactly how cleverly this has been resolved.
After two additional holes in
the wall and small reorganization, extra 55 paints found their place. The
bottles with orange closing are AKInteractive acrylic paints. As you can see, we can expand easily our working
area with additional racks, hanging both vertically and horizontally.
And this is how my atelier
looks like now. Everything is well organized and within a hand reach.
SUMMARY:
Hanging paint racks are a completely
new item offered by HobbyZone and turned out to be exactly the thing I was missing
in my atelier.
+ solid and accurate construction,
all items fit each other perfectly
+ easy assembly
+ smart design
+ possibility to fit in several
racks next to one another either horizontally or vertically
- new Vallejo washes do not
fit the universal rack
If you look for space for your
paints and have some empty walls close to your working area, I sincerely recommend
this product.
You can buy the product directly in the manufacturer's online store. Send the whole world.Have fun painting,
ARBAL