Micro-Mark "Etch Buddy" Photo-Etch Bending Fixture

Product arrived on time and was as expected. Great tool. Would recommend

Great product. Fast shipping. I would recommend this tool as well as this vendor.

Good machining easy to use.

What were they thinking when they designed this thing with a slot cut along the entire width of the tool? When you bend a photo etch part with this, the razor blade goes down into the slot (which is rounded) and ends up putting that same radius on the sharp bend this thing claims to be capable of making. A bend with a radius is NOT a sharp bend! Also, if you have tiny parts like pull handles on aircraft instrument panels...forget it. That slot cut in it will swallow small parts, making it extremely difficult, frustrating, and risky to use with tiny parts. Photo etch kits aint cheap, and you can't just buy individual replacement parts for the ones that will inevitably get mangled by this poorly designed "tool". Also, as another reviewer pointed out, the surface is extremely rough, leading to slip and stick of any tool you might use to help position small parts...so you risk that tool springing back and launching that part into oblivion. Unfortunately, I didn't have an immediate need for it when I ordered it, so I was well beyond the 30 day return window today when I tried using it for the first time. This thing has one good use...and that's as a $50.00 paperweight. Its also clearly not made in the USA, since the hardware on it is all metric hardware.

Not good. This may work for pretty basic bending, but anything that requires precision will be an exercise in frustration. There's a machined texture running across the surface of the base which catches the razor and parts and makes positioning harder than it needs to be. It has a v-shaped trough that runs the width of the tool right before the fingers which is supposed to help you steady the razor while bending. Good idea, but it doesn't actually help. It ends up making it more difficult to make sharp bends and instead makes them softer and more rounded. The fingers themselves are decent, but they're a little too tall, especially for when you need to bend more than 90 degrees. The adjustment knobs are fine and work as expected. Some of the finishing could be better, there are burrs and some rough patches where the edges are milled. Don't waste you time with this trying to work around its deficiencies, buy an equivalent tool from Trumpeter or The Small Shop.

The surface has a heavy finish on it that instead of calling it a brushed finish I can only call it a deeply scratched finish. When trying to position a small photoetch part into position to fold it the part will jump all over the place because the surface will catch the edge of the part and it will spring a long way sometimes. I have quit using it and purchased one with a flat finish which makes it much easier to use. I have lost irreplaceable parts because of this poorly designed thing.

The product ends and shapes photo etch perfectly as well as working as a small clamp. I highly recommend it to fellow modelers.

If you have photo etched pieces to bend this tool is a must.