Bought this as a gift for my nephew who is 6. He has been enjoying helping his parents when they are doing work with real tools. So I wanted to get him something that was more of a real tool and not a toy pretend tool, but that was also age appropriate and safe. Some negative reviews mention that the motor wasn’t very strong, or that this isn’t made well and breaks easily. We only just got this, but my early impressions are that it is a very good tool for younger children. I think complaints about weak power and flimsy quality might come from attempting to use it with older kids and trying to be ambitious with what wood it can use. When doing simple experimenting with the lightweight wood that comes with the kit (a few small boards and dowels are included; and I bought extra of a similar type so that he wouldn’t run out for awhile) the tool works very well with those and provided a great learning experience for a young one to get acquainted with power tools. This tool is modular and can be configured to work as a table saw, a drill press, a sander wheel, and a lathe. It seems pretty darned safe and claims to be suitable for ages 5+. I would highly advise close adult supervision and instruction for young children, but it does seem fairly safe. To me, I’m most concerned about the safety of the saw feature. It works well with the small boards provided and it isn’t terribly sharp or powerful, but I’m still concerned that it would be easy for a young child to get hurt if they were using this unsupervised and without continual training and guidance. Still, this is a great tool for building dexterity, skills, and confidence. As far as durability, I can see that it would be easy to accidentally snap the small and fragile blade and it was also possible to jam up and bind the motor as a child is learning to get the feel for how to cut a curved shape. But with some instructions and demonstrations my nephew was getting the hang of maybe cuts. I think the fact that the motor can bind if you are not careful and jam it up might account for some of the negative reviews that say this tool is not very powerful, but it also points to the fact that this is designed as a tool that is supposed to be safe for young children. We converted to Lathe mode and I did not have a lot of experience to offer much instruction because I’ve never used a lathe of any type before, but I had the general concept of what it can do. So we were both learning that one together a bit. The lathe was a real hit with him and me. First, I felt a lot more relaxed in terms of safety. Compared to the saw, the lathe seems much safer to me. You will still want to supervise, but I don’t think the lathe (and the sander) require nearly the close vigilance as the saw (and drill). We were both enjoying learning how to use a lathe and had some excitement as we had some immediate success in turning our first piece. It was definitely a learning experience and we made some mistakes that we learned from. It is possible to not perfectly center the dowel and then it won’t spin in a balanced way making it much harder to cut into. We definitely did that. Then you have to get a feel for how to work the tool to cut into the wood… it is definitely possible to jam into the dowel too much and at bad angles and jam up and stop the motor. I suppose if you did that too much or on purpose, you could possibly break the tool. But we quickly learned from our mistakes and improved our techniques and tool useage and I believe that’s the entire point so I do think this is a very successful learning tool. Within about 4 lathe attempts using different dowels, we were getting much better looking results with much less effort. He was hooked after the first one which turned out like something almost immediately but in retrospect it looked like a stick that a dog had gnawed on compared to the pieces we were creating by our third and fourth attempts. I think this is a great toy for the right kid and the right age. Do be aware that it is probably best suited to younger kids more than older kids… or to less experienced kids with lower expectations of what they will be able to build with it. Also, I would advise to please be very cautious with safety and expect to be using this in close supervision with the child and constantly guiding them and gauging and monitoring their competence and responsibility with it. Be especially vigilant when using the saw. But with all that said, this is a fun learning tool for kids to use and build confidence and skill in using power tools and getting an understanding about how things are made. Keep your expectations low about what they can realistically build with this initially. First attempts are likely to be clumsy at best, but there is a lot of excitement and joy in just learning how to make successful and safe straight cuts, bore holes, sand smooth edges, and magically turn a dowel into a rippled spindle. I have no doubt that with continued use that it is very possible for a motivated kid to build some very advanced projects with this once they build their basic skills. But the toy itself is a great way for them to learn power tool use and safety.Weiterlesen
