Paint Hanger - HobbyZone (ENGLISH VERSION) | Coloured Dust

Friday, February 15, 2013

Paint Hanger - HobbyZone (ENGLISH VERSION)

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.

The product package.



As you see the packaging is not beautifully designed but it does its job. Reliably protects the product.

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.

Inside the package.


The hanger construction consists of 16 elements.

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.

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.

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.

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


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 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.

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