Which is the Best Gourd Woodburner? – This is what we found…

Often we hear - "What is the best wood burning tool for gourds?" If you are going to be crafting with gourds for any length of time, soon or later you are going to want to have a quality gourd woodburner in your tool area.  Today we are going to stack up three poplar woodburners hoping to see if we can't narrow down the best gourd woodburner

For the sake of this comparison, we elected not to review several of the fixed tip/single heat setting burners on the market.  The single tip, and singular heating, made them far too difficult to use for gourds.

Before getting into the machines we are looking at – let’s talk about some of the features you will want in your gourd woodburner.

Temperature Control – Depending on the project that you are working on, you may want to add shades to your work.  This is where temperature control is important.  The wider the range, the more shading and subtlety you can add to your project.  You want a burner with multiple settings, and an applicable use for each temperature setting.

Pen/Tip Variety – As much as temperature matters for shading/color – tips matter for the details.  Don’t buy into the “one size fits all” trap.  Likewise – we looked interchangeable tips as a cost saving/time saving measure as well.

Quality Handle – Finally we looked at the handles.  The handles may seem an odd feature to critique, but trust us, you don’t want a handle that will heat up and is uncomfortable to use.  You’ll see those discomforts show up in your work.

Burnmaster Hawk

The Burnmanster Hawk comes with a number of features:

• One pen with 10 Wire Tips
• Adjustable 130 W. Power Supply - with additional micro-heat settings
• Burnmaster Pen accepts replacement parts and power from all major brands of hotwire burning systems.
• 3 Year Warranty on power supply, 1 Year warranty on pens.

What we liked:

The tips are made of a lower gauge wire.  What this means is that it will extend the life of your tips.  A higher gauge wire, and higher temps could destroy the tips if use for a longer length of time.  Adapters that are included allow for use of other pens from other machines.  The pens stay relatively cool with use.

What we didn’t like:

The handle is a bit larger than the other machines.  The handle itself stays somewhat cool/warm after use – it doesn’t heat up like the other ones – however, we found that if you use the adapter to use another manufactures pen, the adapter piece does get hot.  Of the machines we looked at, this model doesn’t have two pens.  However, the Burnmaster Eagle does.

Razor Tip Dual Burner

The Razor Tip Dual Burner features:

• Dual plugins on a 45 W. Power supply
• Extra Low End temperature setting
• Over 900 tips available
• Cords and adapters to fit other brands pens and burners

What we liked:

We like the dual ports – if you know you are going to be going back and forth between two styles or heat settings, this is a real time saver.  Also, you will find that you’ll get a higher consistency of work when you don’t have to wait for the pens to heat up or cool down frequently.

What we didn’t like

The handle seems to be thinner than others – making it prone to heat up quicker.  Without the use of gloves, prolonged use may not be possible.  Limited amount of pens with initial purchase.  It is nice having dual ports, and not needing to change tips/pens – however, we didn’t like that there was only one dial to control both pens.  There is a switch to change between “A” pen and “B” pen, but we would have like do see dual ports with dual heating controls.

 

TRUArt Stage 2 Dual Pen

The TRUArt State 2 comes ready to work with the following:

• 60W Power Supply with adjustable control and two ports.
• Dual pens with interchangeable tips
• 20 tips included with machine

 

What we liked:

Again the dual ports are a nice addition, and allows for smooth transitions between styles.  The 60W power supply quickly heats up tips very nicely.  Higher temps generally are going to make much crisper designs.  Excellent customer service.  Great all in one package.

What we didn’t like:

Some of the other units we looked at were much more universal than this one.  Other tips don’t fit very well with this pen, with really manipulating the tips.  This "all-in-one" package has a higher asking price.  Lastly, we found the handle to be rigid and after a time uncomfortable.

Our Conclusion

Of the three we looked at, we think the Burnmaster Hawk is the best gourd woodburner for the money.  While we were impressed with the dual pens, and extra tips included with the TRUArt machine, ultimately we felt that the Burnmaster was more universal.  Having the ability to swap hardware between machines is a huge added benefit.  While the TRUArt allows that functionality – you really need to modify the tips to make it happen.  You can find them here in the Gourd Depot Store

The Razor Tip is a good machine, but the handle and weaker tips didn’t seem to stand up to the same workload that the Burnmaster did.

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