The mini phaser is a nice control for the price. It has a heavy duty power cord, accommodates three wire grounded plugs so you can use it with some of the better irons and has a light to let you know if you've forgotten to turn it off.
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The GlaStar Temperature Control is different from most temperature controls. The average control works with a rheostat and is therefore nothing more than a glorified dimmer switch.
The GlaStar on the other hand is a pulse timed controller. What this means is that rather than reducing the power to the iron all the time, it actually cycles on and off, more the way your furnace runs. This makes more efficient use of power, but more importantly it will allow your iron to heat up quickly without having to crank the control up to full, then turn it down later.
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The Hexacon Cradle is my favorite iron stand.
Maybe it's a nostalgia thing taking me back to my first professional stained
glass gig in the early 70's?
Anyhow, the cradle is simple. It just lays there and you slap your iron down into it...and that's that. Nothing fancy, and you don't need good aim. Upright stands make you work too hard, lifting the iron high enough to reach the hole and then having to hit the "bullseye" to actually get the iron into the stand. Sounds silly, but really, who needs that.
To make matters worse, all those stands with the coil springs that the iron slides into, well they're magic or something. They have the magical ability to suck the power cord from the iron into the spring so the iron winds up melting the insulation off the wires. If you're lucky, you see or smell the smoke before the short circuit comes:-)
Now it's time to fess up. The Hakko 456, my favorite iron, doesn't really lay in it right, but I don't care, I just hate the other stands. If you just need to have a good fit, we have the stand made by Hakko just for the 456 listed just below. I'm sure it's a great stand, but honestly I've never tried one.
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What can I say? I've already fessed up on this one.
Never tried it beyond sticking a 456/16P into it and seeing that it fits well.
It has a built-in sponge tray for cleaning your iron tip and is designed to
"repel" your iron cord so you won't burn it up, unlike the spring things.
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This is perhaps the best of the metal spring type iron stands. It has a sponge tray for cleaning your iron tip and unlike the cheaper models, it has a metal insert at the top of the spring. On the models with the plastic inserts if the iron is left untended for too long or not inserted into the stand straight the plastic burns and smells terrible.
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© Dodge Studio 1996-2008
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