DEXCHK AXIS Handle Review

At Adepticon, you will see hundreds of vendors in the hobby space. Most are model makers, game creators, or companies that sell gaming accessories. Dice, terrain, battlemats…but if you dig deep enough, you’ll find the tools. Sometimes shoved to a corner of a booth, sometimes a full booth, but hobby tools, while important, aren’t really the biggest thing at a con.

At first glance, you might think there’s not a whole lot of innovation space in the tools section of the gaming hobby, but this is where you’re wrong. Take handles for instance. When most miniature painters start, they will use whatever they can get their hands on, from a pill bottle to a piece of wood to just holding the model in a gloved hand (monstrous behavior), but they eventually graduate to a painting handle.

These handles come in a variety of shapes and sizes and features.  Some may have a spring loaded holder which can hold a based model. Some have interesting bits, like a thumb rest, an egg shape, a cork topper. 

A friend introduced me to Andrew Stuber, who is part owner of DEXCHK Supply Co, a boutique level painting accessory company. He handed me the AXIS Handle, and at that moment, I felt something different about this handle. 

The AXIS is a paint handle that goes in the opposite direction from the rest of my handles (I own about 4 other handles). While all of my current handles try to pack form and function in a small size, the AXIS goes big. 

“I started with the handlebar from my Harley.” Andrew told me in an email exchange. Him and his partner, Ian Phillips, took an audit of all of their existing handles and looked with a critical eye at the feature sets. 

The AXIS includes a few features I’m really loving: A heavy base with a magnet (so it can stick to metallic surfaces easily), a shallow top with a strong magnet and the textured flared caps which, when combined with the magnet and the top, create a perfect surface for rotating with just a thumb. And unlike with other handles I’ve used, the model actually stays in place with a rubber textured grip that helps me hold the handle. If I had a sweaty hand, it would probably work there too. Shout out to my sweaty hand folks! 

The core drive of their design was to keep the form factor of the grip, which is what I identified when I first held the AXIS and my time spent with it over the last two weeks. Using the cycle handle as inspiration, it’s effortless to move around in the hand, and not once was I worried about my model falling.

The core set comes with the AXIS handle, 2 standard caps, and 2 silicone caps, called Sili-cork. Andrew told me that his big issue with cork is that it falls apart. Silicon self heals. I haven’t tested it, as I’m not a pinner (this is when you glue a part of the model to a pin and typically mount in cork), but it feels extremely useful. 

They also sent me some extra caps, including the XL cap, which is great for handling busts or a larger based model.

I really love this handle, and it’s because it’s well designed. They went through 20 prototypes, along with a dozen or so cap designs, and tested it with “...about a dozen testers, from novice, to instructors, to golden demon winners as well as a couple of engineers that deal with design and materials.” This product shows the results.

This is a premium product, and with that comes a premium price tag. AXIS retails for 44.95 USD but I believe this is worth it. If you spring for $59 USD, you can get the kit, which includes 4 caps. But for some people, this price tag might be an issue. Also, the build quality is 3D printed and hand assembled, so some folks might be turned off from the occasional line, but I’m not. Andrew assures me that he wants to move to injection molding, and I hope it happens.

If you can, check out the AXIS handle. There’s something to be said about purchasing a premium product and seeing the value of it, and I definitely see it here.