Review: Project Paint Station from Army Painter

 So, for Christmas, I got this:

What do I think? Looks good on the box, but not so much in real life. The big issue is in the construction. Being MDF, I was expecting it to use slots and tabs to hold itself together while the glue dries. The only slots and tabs hold the horizontal pieces to the back piece. There are no slots and tabs on any of the vertical pieces. There are grooved areas, which are necessary because no glue will stick nicely to the white melomine surface. 

From the top

I don't recall whether the assembly instructions call for clamps, but they are absolutely necessary because of the lack of slots and tabs. In particular, you need them to hold that piece with the Army Painter label, because you need to bend the piece to fit it into the groove. Not the best experience because I had to assemble it over a couple of nights to allow the glue to dry and I didn't have enough small clamps to do it in one shot.

Tip: They mention a specific glue, but I'm not buying it just for this. I used Carpenter's Glue, but really any PVA-based glue should work fine, as long as it dries clear or white. Don't use Carpenter's Glue though, because it has a yellowish colour that you can see. 

You can see the lack of tabs and slots on the sides. Note the grooves for gluing the pieces together.

Once assembled, it seems solid enough, but I'm definitely not going to deliberately test it because I have no faith it will stick together if I drop it any distance at all.

It will hold dropper bottle style paint pots, but not those Citidel paint pots. Fortunately 90% of my paints are Vallejo or other dropper style paint pots. 

It seems OK, and I will use it, but I'm sure there are sturdier and easier to assemble options.