I am looking to step up from my cheap woodburning pen. I don't know what id good and what isn't in the wood burning world for products. I am not looking for prograde but in the 150 range and something i can add tips etc to down the road.
Is optima anygood seems they have a good kit that you can add too?

The Burnmaster Hawk is what was recommended to me in a class where we were doing ALOT of multiple burns and I had brought my Razortip system and it definitely didn't have the power to keep the tip hot enough to burn over and over. It took forever to get the tip hot enough to burn again.

If you're only going to do pretty pictures on a flat piece of wood, then the razortip would do...but if you are planning to burn multiple patterns with custom made tips or even using stock tips then you need more power than the
Razortip offers.

In this class I also learned how to make my own tips  with 20ga Nichrome wire..creating patterns..sort of like a branding iron as well as the basic tips that get used and broken over and over.

Check them out.

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Ok... i have to say... my teacher called it sissy burning versus serious burning. What we were doing was using the tip to do deep burns over and over.

The smoke was catching fire as we burned!! It was so "Tim the Toolman" cool!!

Even the repeated shallow burns we were  doing.. the Burnmaster was more than up to the job.

I think the choice of equipment may partly be dictated by the type of burning you want to do. Burning deep textures will no doubt require more power than “arty” drawings. On the assumption it’s for texturing check machine output and maximum wire size. Over here I had the choice of several machines with outputs from 30W up to 45W with maximum recommended wire sizes of 23swg (.6mm) or 20swg (.9mm).

I went with a 40W machine that’s takes 20swg wire. It was an easy choice as it was half price at a tool show!

Love the 2 finger holes as his nostrils!!