Great for beginners!

This is a great, reasonably priced woodburning tool for beginners. I bought it specifically because it's been suggested to me from various beginner pyrography websites. Initially, I had almost given it a very low rating, because there can definitely be problems, but I ended up changing my opinion on that. Here's why.

After using this about four times, the threads became malformed and I could no longer screw in tips correctly, I was pretty upset and contacted the company, expecting them to do nothing. However, right away they sent me a rethreading tool and gave me some great advice, which I'm going to share with you here. If you end up having this problem I definitely recommend contacting Walnut Hollow. Here are some suggestions to avoid needing to rethread:

- Only change tips when cool and only to 'finger-tightness' in other words, if you use pliers, please do not tighten too much.
- Most importantly, you can use powdered graphite lubricant to stop things from sticking and prevent problems in the future!

My other complaint about this would be that the included stand is not really anything of the sort, it needs to be taped down to be used, it does not 'stand' at all. It's so annoying to use that I just ended up using a ceramic bakeware dish to place my tool in.

Other than that, I would recommend this tool for beginners. It does come with a full range of tips (even some I won't use like the solder tip) and is very beginner friendly and the temperature dial is a must-have! I wish the cord was a little longer and didn't get in the way so much, but there's not much to be done with that. If you're a beginner using this, make sure to look up a lot pyrography and safety and I advise cleaning the carbon build up on the tip with a tea strainer or mesh sink blocker.

The tool is a very comfortable size in the hand, though it can get quite warm at high temperatures.