Product Review: Meng DSPIAE Precison Pointed Tweezers
Ok so a pair of tweezers is a pair of tweezers right? Well not always, as modellers we often find the need to use them during our projects such as for manoeuvring small parts like PE about or placing/removing paint masks and often we accumulate several pairs often each with a different purpose in mind, for example I prefer reverse grip for PE work and soldering or small flat tips for decal work for example.
So it was a couple of weeks ago now but I recently added a new set to my armoury. It was during a visit to a new bricks and mortar model shop called Rif-Raf Models in Dundee, which is where I live. In fact this new shop has been set up by a member of the club I am also member of (IPMS Dundee) and if that's not good enough well it's about 500 mtrs from my home!
So I had popped in as I was on the hunt for some RAF Hemp coloured paint for a build I have coming up soon and I spied these sitting in one of the cabinets. Well I looked at the little red box and thought, I don't really have any really pointed tweezers so they got bought too.
Now I know the packaging isn't what's important but it I do have to give a shout out to the quality of the packing materials, the outer card is of good thickness and quality, is well printed and the foam insert inside is suitably dense and holds the super shiny tweezers very snug.
Now as you can see the packaging warns that these tweezers are very sharp, how sharp you ask, well certainly sharp enough to draw blood if your not paying attention as I have already found out in the few small bench sessions I have had since their purchase.
There's a small silicone tip cover which is to help protect the tweezers from accidental damage when not in use I assume, but I would probably recommend keeping the box and storing them in it after all these are not a cheap set of tweezers and it would be a crying shame to damage the tips in storage. The tip protector does do a great job of preventing you from stabbing yourself on the extremely pointy end of these tweezers.
The tips themselves are super sharp, precision ground and line up perfectly with one another, of course this is to be expected however it never ceases to amaze me how poorly this can be done on cheaper sets of tweezers.
You don't need a great deal of force to operate the tweezers either, the action is satisfyingly soft in the hand yet I have always felt confident in the grip strength on the actual parts your holding themselves. The tips are also nicely tapered so you shouldn't have any difficulty using them in confined spaces like model aircraft cockpits for example.
My only criticism of these tweezers would probably be the almost mirror finish to the steel, whilst this is definitely aesthetically pleasing and not posing an issue if you're wearing Latex or Nitrile gloves whilst you build as I normally do, I did find it quite slippery in my fingers without gloves, especially if I had recently taken my gloves off and my hands were a bit sweaty.
In conclusion I think the Meng DSPIAE Precision Pointed Tweezers are a high quality piece of kit that I am very happy to have added to my bench. Whilst some may think they're a bit on the pricey side, they are still probably cheaper than Tweezerman sets for example which are probably more at home plucking eyebrows than poking about model kits, so you really shouldn't be put off by the price, especially as if you look after those tips I can see them continuing to serve for years to come.