41 of 41 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fantastic Set!, July 26, 2009
This review is from: The Spiral Draw Book (Klutz) (Spiral-bound)
I got interested in drawing spiral images like the old-time Spirograph, and began looking for a set to do it with. It was quite a struggle! I have not tried the deluxe or any models of the Spirograph, but the reviews of the current ones made me very uncertain.
The reviews of this product contained some uncertainties, too, but I read carefully, and decided to try it. Wow! Am I glad I did get one! It is awesome!
I think the problem some people are having is that they are not using it on a completely flat surface. And you have to hold the frame down firmly, not let it slip when you are partway around. You also have to set the circle and the frame in the right order, and right sides up.
The instructions for how to do this are in the book, short, simple, and clear. The only confusion I can see is that if you did the suggested drawings in the book without removing the plastic container on the front that holds the tools, at least half of the time you would not be drawing on a flat surface.
You also need specific ink pens like the ones that come with the set, in order to do the swirling patterns through the wheels. No felt-tip pens. The gel ink pens that come with it are great! And I found some gel ink ballpoints at Hobby Lobby that work well, too.
I bought a very inexpensive spiral draw set and found out from it two more GREAT things about this set. First, you can see through the drawing wheels. The cheap set I bought has solid wheels, and you can't see a thing. That means you don't even know where you are in the pattern.
Second, this set has various shapes included in the wheels, not just dots. That vastly increases the number and quality of the results.
If you have interest in a spiral drawing set, this one is wonderful!
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21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Very nice., September 6, 2005
This review is from: The Spiral Draw Book (Klutz) (Spiral-bound)
This is a fun little book that kept me entertained at work while waiting for phone calls. I must have used every piece of scrap paper in a five-desk radius! It could be tricky to use, sometimes, since the pressure must be just right and the angle you're drawing at correct. But that was onle 1% of the doodles, and usualyl I wasn't paying attention. Otherwise I posted them to my walls and left htem on other people's desks.
I wish normal Spirographs had different shapes like this one does. Of if this one came with different wheels and Spirograph-styled holes. Ah, well, it's an imperfect world, but it's a perfect toy!
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59 of 69 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
worthless junk, March 28, 2006
This review is from: The Spiral Draw Book (Klutz) (Spiral-bound)
I bought this for my children hoping to share with them the magic I had with my spirograph as a child. I am very sad that it turned out to be a huge waste of time and money. It is so poorly designed that my children (ages 6 and 7) just can't use it. I was sure they just needed to get the hang of it so I spent about an hour one night doing it by myself and I got about 5 designs out of it before I gave up. To make it work you have to put a lot of pressure on the entire frame to keep it from moving and even then the disk kept slipping out from under it and messing up the design. Not to mention the fact that the constant pressure was hard for me to keep up so I don't know how a child is supposed to do it. I guess I will just have to find a real spirograph set from the 70's.
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