Walnut Hollow Creative Wood Burner Tool Review

Walnut Hollow Creative Wood Burner Tool Review

Criteria for review:

1. General Features
2. Heat Retention
3. Tip Selection
4. Ease of Switching tips
5. Quickness of heating and cooling
6. Cost
7. Stand Out Perks

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Before we get started with this Walnut Hollow Creative Wood Burner Tool, I want to make sure this is clear. I’m not being paid to say any of these things. These are 100% my thoughts and opinions. The main thing our followers ask is “what equipment should I use?” For years, I stuck with one burner, so for the sake of giving my audience the best possible info, I need to branch out and test other options. I reached out to several wood burning manufacturers and asked if we could test there burner and review it.

I was honest with them and told them that I would give an 100% honest review. I want my audience to have the best knowledge possible and I want them to know what to expect. Most of the manufacturers responded excitedly and gladly sent me a burner to test and review. The Walnut Hollow Creative is one of those, so let’s dive into the criteria.

General Features

I’m really excited to test and review this burner. The price point is fantastic for people that want to upgrade from a craft burner, but still aren’t ready to invest in a $200 – 300 wood burning tool.  It gives people a pro burner option without breaking the bank.  It doesn’t have as many features as a $200 – 300 wood burner of course, but it has some great features at a $58 burner. 

The heat setting dial goes from 1 – 10. It comes with one wand and a clip stand. The stand is compactly hidden on the bottom and you pop it off and place it in the slot on the side. Then it holds your wand in place and gives you a spot to hold it when it’s hot.  The bottom has grips to keep it from sliding around. 

The kit comes with four tips, a puller to help switch your tips, an instruction booklet and carbon paper.

Like other walnut hollow products, the back has a handy chart which gives you info on what each tip does and insight on how to use each one. That’s a really helpful touch for beginners.

I’m going to be testing basswood, Bristol paper, and leather. 

Heat Retention

There are some pros and cons here. The tips get surprisingly hotter than I expected. I tested it all the way up to 10 on wood and it burned it too hot, so I turned it down. It doesn’t hold the heat as much as I want it to. It starts off really hot and quickly goes down when you touch the tip to the wood. However, I will say, it stays hotter than a craft burner, which makes it easier to maintain a continuous burn.

When I burn leather and paper, I have to turn the heat down to a 4. That setting is more than hot enough to keep a consistent heat retention. The leather and the paper are similarly soft enough to need less heat.  

Tip Selection

The kit comes with four tips and as far as I can see on the website, there aren’t any additional tip kits or tips you can buy separately. 
As I’ve mentioned many times before, you don’t really need a collection of 100 tips to be able to burn well. The four tips that come with this kit are very versatile. They are the Universal Shading, Rounded Shading, Ball Point and Drawing Point.

The only tip it doesn’t have that I want is a true straight edge tip. This tip can be used as a straight edge, but I have to turn it and it’s not perfect, but it works. 

My favorite thing about the flat tips is how large they are. I can shade and fill in a larger area and I appreciate that greatly. 

Ease of Switching Tips

This is one of the most important parts and features of a wood burning tool for me. I don’t like a complicated tips switch out or having to wait for tips to cool before I switch the tips. The Walnut hollow Creative Wood Burner Tool uses the prongs system!! YAY! I love this. The kit comes with a puller which helps you pull the hot tip out so you can put in a different one. 

You out in a tip and push down until it clicks. When it was right out of the box and brand new, the first few times I switched tips, it was hard to get that click, but after using it for a few weeks, it got easier. 
Super happy about this feature! 

Quickness of Heating and Cooling

Don’t try this at home folks! I tested out how quickly it heats and cools. This particular test relates to how quickly you are able to switch tips, therefore how quickly you are able to work on your projects. 

It only takes about 15 seconds to heat up and then about 30 – 60 seconds to cool to the touch. Always use the tip puller to pull out the tips, but this is a great feature compared to the Walnut Hollow Versa Tool that takes 4 – 5 minutes to heat up and 4 – 5 minutes to cool down. Because the Walnut Hollow Creative Wood Burner Tool only takes seconds, it really increases your efficiency and the time it takes to change tips. 

Cost

The creative tool is currently for sale on Amazon for $58. This may change over time, but as of right now that’s what it’s going for. I’ve said this already, but I’m going to say it again. This is a great price point for beginners. I would even go as far as saying if you want to try out wood burning and you’ve never done it before, this is a good tool to start with. Skip that craft burner and go right on to this one. 

So many people have reached out to me and asked about what equipment to buy when they are starting to wood burn. When I tell them about the tool I’m using a lot people reply with a hesitation to spend $200 – 300 dollars on a tool. And I get it. It’s a lot to invest in something that you aren’t sure about yet. This kit bridges that gap between a craft burner and a full on expensive wood burner kit. It gives a beginner an option to use a pro burner style tool without breaking the bank. 

Stand out Perks

The size. I love how small it is. This may seem like a small detail, but when you’re working and you’ve got your wood, your burner, tips, puller, pencil, template and just a desk full of stuff, you need all the room you can get. 

The price! Such a huge pro. As far as I know there’s not another burner like this one the market at this price. Leave me a comment if there’s something similar out there that I just haven’t found yet because I’d be interested to know. I think Walnut Hollow did a good job at filling this product gap in the pyrography space. 

Overall Summary

Great for beginners or for the occasional burner. I have a friend that wood burns, but she also does a lot of other crafts, so wood burning isn’t her go to. She was asking what kind of tool to get, so I suggested this one. It’s not a full on pro pyro tool, but it will help her make her crafts quicker and more efficiently than the craft burner she has. 

If you’re getting into becoming a full on pyro artist, then you may want to upgrade to a fancier tool at some point. I have a full time pyro business where I burn portraits, signs and some other things, so I use a pro pyro tool that costs $200. It has more features and all that, but of course it does. I will say as a full time burner, i love the idea of having this in my shop as a backup. You don’t ever want to be caught in a situation where your burner isn’t working and you don’t have another one. 

So if you’re a beginner and you upgrade at some point, this is a great tool to have as a secondary.

Thanks for reading my review of the Walnut Hollow Creative Wood Burner Tool!!

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