I planned on doing a full review of the Ebbles Papercraft Starter Kit this weekend, but unfortunately real life gets in the way. I am going to post a small quick review on what comes in the kit for the brief use of it I have had so far.
I purchased this kit to replace a couple items I currently had that were in need of replacement.
The Ebbles Papercraft Starter Kit ($44.95USD plus shipping) consists of the following:
- 1 Olfa Silver SVR-2 Knife with one 13-segment utility blade strip
- 1 Olfa A1160B art blade pack ( 10 strips with 70 segments/ cutting edges)
- 1 Olfa AB-10S utility blade pack (10 blades with 130 segments/ cutting edges)
- 1 Olfa blade disposal can
- 1 12" Alumicutter safety edge
- 1 12" x 8.5" Alvin self-healing cutting mat
- 1 Gatorblade II scraper/burnisher
- 1 bottle of Elmers Craft Bond Tacky Glue, 4 oz
- 1 Elmers No-Wrinkle Dual Tip Glue Pen, 1 fl oz
- 1 Scotch Restickable glue stick, 0.26 oz
- 1 40-sheet sample pack of our 80lb/216gsm cover stock
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| Everything in the kit minus the coverstock |
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If you notice in some of my previous photos you will see a small green cutting mat, this is the one I had been using, I have discovered that for certain things its too small of a surface, the Mat in this kit is about twice the size as the one I was using. The ruler is a nice solid piece of aluminum that is replacing the steel ruler I was using that has been bent from a certain feline ninja of mine, who will remain unnamed, trying to use it as a spring board a while back, even though I was able to re-straighten it, it never laid truly flat since. As for the knife, as many of you in the miniature gaming hobby know, you can never have too many hobby knives for your various projects, the Olfa one so far does feel pretty decent in my hands and is easy to work with, I will probably regulate one of the x-acto style knives for use while sculpting.
Now the Gatorblade II is one of the other reasons I purchased this kit, I have been looking at getting one from Ebbles Miniatures for a couple months now, granted they are only about $1.50USD each, but I couldn't really justify ordering only one of them and nothing else. So far this has proven to be a nice little tool, you have the edge that you can use to help facilitate folds, and then you can use it as a burnishing tool for sandwich folds to get them nice and flat and squeeze out the excess glue.
The glues are just that glues, I have been using the Elmers No-Wrinkle glue for a while now, and havign an extra one on hand will come in handy and save a trip to the store to get more, I havent used the Tacky Glue yet, but I imagine if used sparingly (as in enough to create the bond and not warp the cardstock) it will be just as good as the No-Wrinkle glue I have been using. Now the Re-stickable glue stick, that I will primarily use for stuff such as the signs I made for my FUS's so that I can have a sign on the building when I want one on it, and take it off when I want to use the building as something else.
The coverstock is a little lighter weight then what I typically get (110lb Georgia Pacific White card stock) though is will still work, I will try and save it though as an emergency supply in case I run out of the two or three reams of card stock I have already.
Over all if purchased individually (minus the cover stock since Mel only sells it in reams of 250 sheets and not in the smaller 40 sheet sample packs included with the kits.) you would be paying $48.80USD plus shipping, with the kit you save $3.85USD, while this isn't really a whole lot it is about the cost of some single miniatures out there.
As a word of warning the Olfa blades are sharp, and when I say sharp I mean they seem to be sharper then the x-acto blades I typically use.
Now the downside to this kit is that Mel only assembled 5 of them and I did purchase one. I don't know how many of the kits still remain, but if your looking at trying your hand at card stock modeling or just looking for replacement tools, or a spare mat, knife and ruler, this kit is well worth it, especially since you can always find uses for the glue, it comes with spare blades, the Gatorblade II is a handy multiple use tool, and it comes with some stock that you can use to print your models on. Only thing that could possibly make this kit even better is if it included ink for you to use in your printer, but then again with all the different printer models out there, that just wouldn't be a reasonable addition to the kit.
Edit: I realized I forgot to mention the Olfa Blade Disposal Can above other then it coming in the kit. The Disposal can has a sliding door on the side that opens to reveal a slit in the side of the can for you to insert the Olfa Knife Blade when you wish to snap a segment off and dispose of it. The snapped of segment will them fall into the can so you don't have to worry about it laying about on your table where you might accidentally cut yourself, the door then slides back in place covering the slit in the side of the can to help prevent old blade segments for falling out. While I use a empty prescription pill bottle for this exact same function, the Disposal Can will be a nice choice to use with the Olfa Knife due to you having to snap off the segments to have a new sharp edge on the blade, just insert the segment you wish to snap off in the slit and then snap it off without worrying about having to try and figure out how to snap the segment off and where to put the old segment.
