Woodpeckers sent out an email newsletter that they’ve got special pricing on “trigger-style assembly jacks.”
They advertise that these jacks are “brand new!” and that you “save 45%.”
Here’s a screen capture of the trigger-style lifting jack tools on Woodpeckers’ online store.
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To be frank, I find this to be extremely surprising, and also very disappointing.
Here’s a quick look at the Woodpeckers trigger-style assembly jacks next to the Viking Arm.
As far as I am aware, countless trigger-style lifting clamps launched after the Viking Arm hit the market, all of them copying and imitating the Viking Arm’s style and innovations.
Irwin and Dewalt recently launched their own versions. Despite having distinct designs, they triggered – no pun intended – a patent infringement legal complaint.
See: Viking Arm Filed Infringement Action Against Stanley Black & Decker.
In a comment, the Viking Arm inventor said:
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I can tell you that we are still waiting to turn a profit that passes our costs. The price was set as low as possible, and it is a result of development cost, patent costs and costs of the high quality parts we use for building it.
Besides the legal action over SBD’s new models, I’d think the countless imitation tools on Amazon and other online market places contribute to how difficult it is for specialty tools like the Viking Arm to succeed.
We’ve talked about the knock-off tools issue that Woodpeckers itself faces – Knockoff Woodpeckers Tools are Getting Bad Reviews.
You can find no-name versions of nearly every Woodpeckers tool on Amazon, and for a fraction of the price of the real thing.
So why would Woodpeckers sell and promote what looks to be a knock-off or at least no-name version of the Viking Arm on their website?
No-name imitation tools must be hurting their own business, and so one would expect Woodpeckers to avoid doing the same to others.
Innovation often involves brands building upon existing ideas, but imitation stifles innovation.
Imagining working hard to design develop a new and better product, only to see cheaply made copies of it sold on Amazon and other online marketplaces a short while later.
Woodpeckers knows what this feels like.
Woodpeckers’ owners are good people. Their customer service is excellent. Some of their tools are great, others not so much (I greatly dislike the new 24″ BigCal calipers I just bought).
I’d like to give them the benefit of the doubt. Maybe someone made a mistake, maybe they didn’t realize these were all no-name imitation versions of the Viking Arm, or maybe so much time has passed that someone assumed this was a generic type of tool.
I wrote to Woodpeckers, asking for official comment/clarity on the matter.
They promptly replied, saying that they weren’t “sure about the history of the Viking Arm,” and also that they would investigate.
It has been 9 days, and Woodpeckers still has the cheap jack tools available for sale on their website.
Should woodworkers have access to cheap jack tools inspired by the Viking Arm? Maybe. But in my opinion, Woodpeckers’ shouldn’t be selling it. Maybe I’m wrong, but I think it sends the wrong message.
Or maybe they should go all-in with imitation tools. Shown here is the Woodpeckers 3D square next to a much cheaper model sold on Amazon.
If they’re going to sell cheap copies of another small company’s tools, why not do the same for their own?
What would happen to Woodpeckers if woodworking stores like Rockler, Woodcraft, or Lee Valley started selling knock-offs of Woodpeckers’ tools and innovations?
I am convinced that Woodpeckers didn’t know about the Viking Arm, or at least that they weren’t aware they were selling an imitation. There are so many copies online that the Viking Arm might no longer be recognized as the source innovation. Still, a legitimate source selling another cheap copy will further dilute the Viking Arm’s standing.
I think they made an honest mistake, but selling this tool is still a mistake.
It’s been more than a week, and they’re still selling it on their website.
Maybe I’m wrong in my opinion, but this just seems uncharacteristic and even inappropriate. It has impacted my impression of the company and also makes me far less inclined to avoid knockoffs and imitations of Woodpeckers’ own products.
This isn’t competition.
Woodpeckers’ isn’t the first to sell cheap copies of the Viking Arm – shown here are just some of the ones I found on Amazon for an earlier post – but that still doesn’t make it right.
Farkleberry
If you can’t beat em, join em
fred
I did not pay attention to this if I indeed got the email from Woodpeckers. They do seem to be sending out many more (most that I ignore) emails recently – sometimes more than two per day. I wonder if they have fallen on hard times and perhaps hired a new marketing guru to help turn things around. If that be the case – the guru is a false-prophet IMO. Selling junky and suspect-quality tools will only cheapen their own brand. I’m sure that they are getting eaten alive by knockoffs of their tools being sold on Amazon for fractions of their costs – but retaliating by also selling knockoffs is not right.
Stuart
Their email volume has been excessive. I received 3 sales emails from them in the past 4 hours. Looking at my inbox, here’s how many sales emails they sent me recently:
Sept 11: 4
Sept 10: 2
Sept 9: 3
Sept 8: 5
Sept 7: 3
Sept 6: 3
Sept 5: 7
John
Any company who sends daily marketing emails gets an unsubscribe from me. I lose nothing. It’s their loss. Both companies and consumers need to learn how to be smarter about commerce.
MM
Same. I honestly feel that even one Email a day is too much, unless it’s some kind of daily report that I’ve specifically requested, like saved searches I have up on Ebay, Reverb, etc.
Rog
Don’t sign up for Woodcraft’s email if you don’t like being inundated!
Scott K
Yes. I’m a huge fan of my iPhone’s Hide My Email feature – I’ve been using this more and more for first time purcha
Stuart
They sent 2 more emails today, for 5 so far.
John
Their entire business model has always been based on FOMO, fear of missing out. I no longer subscribe to that notion for anything or any business. I stopped buying one-time-tools years ago. If I need a tool, I don’t need in 5 months, I need a tool for a current project.
They have some decent tools and some totally unnecessary over-engineered stuff, but their prices are silly and their tools I have aren’t always the first I go to use more often than not. So the need for what they offer has dwindled.
fred
The One-Time-Tool idea is both silly and genius. Silly and frustrating because by the time you get the tool – your needs may have changed, or you have probably done fine without it for months – so why not forego it completely. Genius in that Woodpeckers holds off on the cost of a production run until they have lined up the buyers that will pay for it plus a hefty profit. I can appreciate the model – since all of the businesses that I was associated with never did a scrap of work or produced anything based on speculation of sales. In our fabrication and cabinet businesses – we might have inventory of some (as little as practical) raw materials but finished goods were shipped out ASAP unless the buyer was paying us to warehouse them. All production was based on contracts with our clients.
JR Ramos
I have tried for about four years to get on Woodpeckers’ email list – have not received one single email. Tried using the OneTime and standard methods, tried using two different emails, even sent an email to them inquiring (which was no help in the end). They’ve lost sales to me, I’ve lost opportunities with them, but I gave up and just try to remember to check their site and YouTube channel every few months. This did drive me to buy a couple of import copies of their products, though, which have been excellent and useful at a penny-fraction of the cost….so. Some of those copies are wonderful but you do have to shop for them carefully.
JR Ramos
I have mixed feelings about the Viking. It’s excellent, no doubt. The price, as nearly everyone grouses about, is just tooooo high. If they are honest about saying that their price is as low as possible then perhaps they need to consider changing things up in one way or another in the sourcing or assembly – or perhaps they could have realized that in the beginning and sold or licensed the patent to a company that could bring it to market for a more affordable and more successful price.
As for Woodpeckers, I don’t see any wrong here. The high price of the Viking would fall right in line with their tools and clientele but if the copies are legal for sale then there’s no big issue with selling them, whether they knew anything or not. I know the answer to this (likely) but if the IP is important enough to Massca to pursue the new big players then why have they not pursued the many many sellers with copies over the YEARS now? It would take some cash but it’s not exceptionally difficult to pursue this and get an injunction that would be effective, especially now.
At least Woodpeckers did select one of the copies that has some merit – the photos are real, not graphics, and they picked one that is sturdier than the majority out there. If you have not seen, held, or used any of these copies then you may not realize this or that they aren’t all the same. In fact, this would be a better target for Massca to file suit than most of the other copies, imho. The one nefarious weak point is the trigger handle – they all tend to crack at the rivet whether they have that metal bar connection or a plastic one. None of the copies can handle the pressure/force that the Viking can (except the Irwin/DeWalt) but they do very well for a number of tasks if you take that into account and use them accordingly.
That’s a heck of a price for decent ones. I’m ordering a pair now as I finally cracked the handles of the semi-decent ones I got a few years ago in a “rollover accident”…..
Direct link for those who might like to see the product photos more clearly and larger: https://www.woodpeck.com/trigger-style-assembly-jack-2pack.html
MM
This makes little sense to me is because it dilutes Woodpeckers’ branding. Woodpeckers charges premium prices for what it asserts to be top tier products. It’s a luxury or high-end brand, like Gucci or Ferrari or Snap-On. It doesn’t make sense for them to also offer cheapo tools. It’s not just the installation jacks but also the other things listed in that image like the black plastic case or that $55 shop stool. None of those products fit with Woodpecker’s traditional branding of being expensive but top quality. It feels as if they can’t decide what segment of the market they are targeting.
And then on top of that you have the other issue of this being a knockoff product while Woodpeckers themselves have certainly felt the sting of having their products ripped off by discount manufacturers many times in the past.
JR Ramos
Oh, that whole brand perception thing is still strong but it’s so distorted these days. Lots of companies do this kind of thing, either as a “service” or convenience to their ordering customers, or to have some products rolling that may provide a steadier flow of orders/income. Woodpeckers is absolutely holding tight to “high-end” brand perception and also justify some of their pricing with things like well-paid employees with good benefits, and good customer service (which is all true and does cost money), but there’s still a pretty hefty profit margin for them, especially selling direct as they do. I think their choice to include some cheap tools or accessories is fine and surely doesn’t impact their core business or perception by customers and potential customers. It’s not like they have a lot of them. They seem to be doing great and prospering, continuing to offer core and new and OneTime products, so it must be working for their bottom line.
Troy H.
“if the IP is important enough to Massca to pursue the new big players then why have they not pursued the many many sellers with copies over the YEARS now? It would take some cash but it’s not exceptionally difficult to pursue this and get an injunction that would be effective, especially now.”
….The price is too high, but they should definitely go after every chinesium clone and major tool brand stealing their IP at the same time. There are tons of them and you have to sue them individually… then that importer disappears and 3 more pop up.
You do realize that litigation costs to protect IP are astronomical and it is like whackamole out there, right? You could put yourself out of business paying a lawyer to send nastygrams to all the companies that will steal a good idea to profit from. There’s a reason that big names are blatantly stealing the invention. Its because they know that they have the resources to keep the smaller company in litigation and put them out of business or force them into a licensing agreement.
Its not simple and easy to protect IP. Competing with 10,000 Chinese factories and the entrenched oligopoly of gigantic tool brands is extremely difficult and expensive. Going out and buying the copies makes it more difficult for them and discourages innovation in the marketplace.
Why in God’s name would someone try to invent a new tool and bring it to market if people are just going to go out and buy the Chinese knock off and give absolutely nothing to the inventor and pretend like there is nothing wrong with it from an ethical standpoint?
JR Ramos
I probably know more about litigation and costs than you realize, but yes…it’s not always an easy route. However, it’s not insurmountable and it is now easier to do this and get injunctions that can take place at POE. Getting Amazon to comply is…well that’s not yet worth attempting but that may change in the future. Massca really should have been on top of this years ago – I’ve not researched them and suits but it would appear they did little to pursue this until the SBD products arrived.
The knockoffs are a real problem, yes, and just now starting to get some deserved attention from the feds. It has hurt a lot of companies over the years. I always think of the original Dowl-It jigs as a shining example of a small company with a great patented product that eventually was overshadowed by copies (their patent did expire, though, but not before some copies showed up, and that was many years ago). I don’t know how much this affects inventors from going through the application process, though, because the USPTO is certainly not twiddling thumbs. What is more difficult is for small peanut inventors to make things marketable and profitable compared to, say, 30 years ago or so. It’s a tough row to hoe, which is why the majority try to sell or license their awards.
For the Viking arms in particular, I don’t want to be hypocritical, but damn, they just need to reduce that cost somehow. It’s a superior product but the materials really shouldn’t be that expensive and for gosh sake their “invention” was merely working off of basic designs that have been around long before their mutation into a platform lifting foot. For the life of me I can’t remember who now, but there was actually a very early cheap-o model of this in the mid-90s that put poor quality feet on one of those old stamped steel spot welded caulking gun derivatives – they were so weak that they shouldn’t have been produced and they sure didn’t sell for us. But they existed before Viking or anything else did (and people were jigging the Irwin spreader quick-grip clamps, too, the yellow ones). So…they got their award but they really didn’t have to work hard to develop the idea or the parts, and it remains so…at a very high price that does not seem commensurate with the simple materials and construction. They have surely paid for their mold dies many times over by now and that would be the most expensive aspect probably other than plating. Does that justify copies (even if they’re copies in function but not the same parts)? Legally, no, as long as they have their award in force. But it does make the majority of people ripe for supporting something they can afford (maybe they don’t just want cheaper, but they *need* cheaper). Lots of companies have done this where they had a good product that was priced out of reach for most users and they either never flourished or they disappeared unless they had a steady niche. Others were bought by larger companies and often the prices stayed similar but also often went down (Thexton comes to mind).
Keep in mind that patent awards aren’t totally without question or error on the examiner’s part, but if awarded, just like many civil statutes that are passed by legislators, they will stand until challenged, but it takes someone willing to do that. It’s entirely possible that Massca’s patent could be successfully challenged but not at all likely at this point.
Michael
They haven’t recouped costs because no one wants to pay $210 for them… each. I wonder what the actual production costs are. I know the knockoffs are not as robust, but somehow they are making a profit at $22 a pair.
carl
Agreed. How long have these things been on the market for now? How long do they expect to take to recoup costs and are they even on a trajectory to get there in a reasonable time with whatever their sales are at the high price they’re asking?
Ken
They are made in Norway which has one of the highest unionization rates in the world, about 5x more than the US. Their production costs must be astronomical. Think about not only their manufacturing costs, but transport, energy, insurance, legal, etc. Crazy to think that they could probably dramatically lower their production costs by moving them to the US.
Peter Unlustig
Its not just Unions but also higher environmental standards than here in the US.
Peter Unlustig
Reasons might be that one company Viking here has the cost of R&D and make in a country Finland I think that has proper labour laws and costs and higher environmental standards than some xyz company in a country that has little of those costs just “copying” their design.
Reminds me a bit about the whole made in the US thing.
A lot of people want it but when they see the price tag for that they complain and rather buy a cheap knock off.
DRT42
The originals are $210 ? Versus the knockoffs at 2 for $22, or $11 each. That’s 19 times as much money for the originals. 19x ! Nobody is going to pay 19 times as much money for almost the same thing.
CMF
According to the quote Stuart posted ” it is a result of development cost, patent costs and costs of the high quality parts we use for building it.”
If the moved production to China, they could probably drop costs ny more than 50%, while keeping QC. But I believe they are to proud to move out of their home country.
Unfortunately, it is a jungle out there, eat or be eaten. The knock offs may be cheap, but the undercut the Viking by so much, it is a battle they are losing
Robert
I am disappointed in Woodpecker for the reasons many stated above.
Especially as it seems a flawed strategy. I can’t see these three products selling well for them in any case. So why threaten your bread and butter product lines which depend on their reputation? I buy woodpecker when it’s obvious they have the solution to a problem, taking for granted the quality means I don’t have to worry about it performing. My calculation is my time is worth the extra cost.
Michael
Massca just appears to be one of the US distributors for the Viking Arm and not the company behind the product. The company is just called Viking Arm.
Michael
https://www.vikingarm.com/about-us-viking-arm/
I stand corrected Viking Arm AS.
JR Ramos
Interesting…and changes my comment above. I’d never looked into the company itself and was just going by Stuart’s comment about Maasca here. Maasca looks like just a rebadging importer, doing most of their business with Woodfox in Taiwan for pocket hole jigs and such, plus some wire mesh and household goods that they must sell separately from their tool biz. Doesn’t appear that they import or sell much volume of the Viking.
Viking Arm AS looks to maybe be one guy, the inventor, and at least a good handful of employees assembling, QC’ing, and shipping, but not actually manufacturing the parts in their own factory I guess? C.R. Laurence seems to be another direct importer for them but on Viking’s site they list lots of distributors (all retail accessible). Manufacturing in Norway and exporting to other markets would absolutely increase costs a lot (as well as raw material prices and freight, I would assume).
Viking makes no qualms about the price in many comments. I did see this on a YouTube comment where they claim to have shut down 4000 sellers…no idea where or if that was just ones that attempted to include the thumb levers for lowering, or what. Sounds like they’re a small enough operation and mostly a one-trick pony that trying to pursue IP defense might be a bit overwhelming compared to companies with a little more oomph.
“2 years ago
Of course it is!!!
But the cheap knock offs PRETENDS to be able to do the same thing, often also pretending TO BE a Viking Arm. We have closed down more than 4000 shops selling crap pretending to be Viking Arm, just cheaper. Both these and most of the cheap knock offs out there uses (stealing) ads of the real Viking Arm and videos and pictures of users using the real Viking Arm. Giving a totally faulty impression and tricking unaware buyers to buy something totally different from what they expected. A «cheap» purchase of something you can’t use is da.. expensive!”
John
I bought 2 Viking Arms when Massca first announced they would be the U.S. distributor in 2020. No regrets for spending the $170 each at the time. Very useful tools. Very well made and never an issue.
While The Dewalt and Irwin versions are equals or better, the chinese knock-offs from everything I have seen and read are crap.
Stuart
Thanks!
I didn’t realize that; until recently I’ve only ever seen Massca associated with the Viking Arm. I’ve got a bunch of corrections to make.
WastedP
So, if they’re going the copycat route, why doesn’t Woodpeckers just buy knock-offs and engrave their logo on them?
JR Ramos
Why bother? That would add at least a little cost and most probably mean buying in to a lot that could be much larger than they want to buy/think they can sell (would be looking at ODM rather than just buying from some supplier who has what they want, assuming that’s what they do/did now). They aren’t presenting them as a Woodpeckers branded product, just an item to sell alongside everything else. And if there’s a chance that they may be junk or misused or whatever ends up in negative commentary from users, then that is a detriment to their brand in a larger way.
KC
I have quite a few tools that I have bought from Woodpeckers over the last few years. I get a sense of pride knowing I am supporting a company that makes products bearing their name right here in the USA. To me, that is important. I wish more tools were made here, rather than in other countries.
I think that you need not look too far to find knock-offs and copy-cat versions in places other than just Amazon. A large retail woodworking store recently released a slab flattening jig that looks quite similar to the one offered by Woodpeckers. In fact, I don’t believe this to be an isolated incidence. I think it is more of a semi-regular occurrence.
I would like to ask a few questions about this without this turning into a political conversation. Why does Amazon and others get away with this? Why don’t the agencies that are supposed to stop these behaviors step in and actually do their job? At what point will the tendency to buy these cheap imitations result in a lack of innovation or a lack of incentive to innovate within US companies, resulting in markets only selling cheap stuff made somewhere else. If the companies like Woodpeckers could do their engineering and design work without having to hire an army of patent lawyers, wouldn’t the tool prices come down?
I really don’t blame Woodpeckers for trying to sell some cheap tools on their site to combat the other retailers who copy their tools and sell cheap imitations. That is the only reason I think they are doing it. But I can’t speak for them, so just my humble opinion is all I can offer. And I don’t think this is a new problem. It has existed and grown extensively since big box stores and large wholesale clubs began to take over. And now, it has moved to the digital world, accessible any time from almost anywhere.
JR Ramos
Well, after looking into it a bit more today, part of the answer to your question is that the vast majority of these lifting jacks on Amazon are not infringing on VA’s patent (here in the US). They have two euro patents, one for the lowering mechanism and one that appears to be just for a lifting jack in general based on a caulking gun mechanism…I can’t find full details on that one though. Here in the US they were awarded the patent for the lowering mechanism but denied the more general lifting jack based on prior work (they had the chance to appeal the examiner’s decision but apparently failed to do so more than once, so that second “general” patent application is officially abandoned). So that explains in part why they went after Irwin/DeWalt since those two new models include the lowering mechanism but we’ll have to see how that plays out in court. I mentioned above that VA says they went after 4,000 shops/sellers to remove their products so if that’s accurate I would suppose that those folks were somewhere within the EU, where their more general patent on a lifting jack was awarded. I didn’t look into Canada.
Amazon in general…well…that’s a whole big mess depending on the product(s). The shoulder lifting/moving straps are a famous example of how everything failed and import copies basically killed the small US startup inventor of that item. Some of it still rests squarely on the shoulders of the IP owner to pursue and defend their own rights, but that isn’t always easy and Amazon doesn’t make it easy – that could change in the future, we’ll see. If/when an IP owner can nail down the offenders and court and get an injunction then those items can be seized at customs’ ports of entry and at least in some places removed from sale. Getting to that point can be difficult and then enforcing it can remain both expensive and difficult (many stories of fraudulently labeled goods trying to sneak under the radar of customs inspectors, etc).
Over the last few years, US Customs has really cracked down on a lot of things (also made some unfortunate errors while doing so) and that could increase. Other developments may but platforms like Amazon more on the hook, so to speak, for certain liabilities and hopefully willful/negligent violations of IP infringement but more needs to be done/decided/updated at the federal level for that to really happen and to have effective teeth.
For things like Woodpeckers’ various measuring tools, there probably aren’t patents granted to be infringed upon (but maybe…I haven’t and am not going to go down that rabbit hole to find out). So copies there by underselling overseas manufacturers are kinda fair game I suppose.
If I were guessing, I’d say that they put this jack on their site just as a convenience and neat item to have in the shop…just a side item on the menu.
All this said, now we can think about counterfeit products…man that’s a whole other world of trouble across the range of products out there. That’s gotten a lot of attention by US Customs as well but it’s harder to get a handle on.
CMF
“You can find no-name versions of nearly every Woodpeckers tool on Amazon”.
If you check Ali Express or Temu, you can find counterfeits. They have the Woodpeckers name on them, but very cheap price. I never ordered one so I do not know if you put a real one and a fake, with WP name on it, if the are identical looking or not very much.
Over the years I ordered this and that from WP’s but have not, probably since before COVID. In future, I might try an Amazon no-name and see how it is.
fred
There sure are lots of pros and cons about the global market that we live in.
Consumers having lots of options and price points to select is certainly a plus. Inventors and manufacturers (and their factory workers) having their products counterfeited is not so nice.
eddiesky
100lb lift vs Viking 300lb rated lift.
OMG…Woodpecker’s site looks like Harbor Freight!!!
Oh … bet they get bought by private equity company within a year…chinesium knockoffs killing their business model!
CMF
100 vs 300, few people need the 300, especially for the price difference.
I have a pair of cheap knock-offs, got them $25 (Princess Auto) for a pair on special. I used them, one on each side of my fridge to lift the front an inch or two to fix the leveling feet on the fridge. I don’t know what the rating is on mine, but the lifted the fridge, no problem.
The problem is always the same; I would love to get the real McCoy Viking, but a pair would have been north of $400. Like many. and unfortunately for Viking, I chose the knock-offs,
JR Ramos
Not sure about the Viking but with the cheapies it’s more of a dubious “holding” capacity rather than lifting capacity. Meaning that the unfortunate failure points of the cheap ones are unsuitable plastic molds for the handles (especially the trigger) and/or low quality tubular rolled rivets. If you try to crank up that much weight with the cheapies they’re likely to crack the handle and become garbage although with some the feet will bend too/or. The Viking has a sturdy cast aluminum handle and a solid pivot pin held with e-clips…pretty robust.
So with the cheapies you just plan and use accordingly and they get many jobs done just fine. Most of them aren’t up for cranking up a heavy large carcass without a little assistance but they’ll hold it up once it’s where you want it.
I think if they moved production to China they’d lose everything in a hurry. I mean they already have all the individual parts clearly and nicely shown in their various repair/assembly videos, but if it’s in hand in a China factory, it’s going to get out and get copied in short order even if those ended up in more domestic sales channels but they would inevitably flood elsewhere. Pardon me if this sounds harsh because it’s just factual and I don’t mean it harshly or anything, but the Chinese are not known for design and innovation, but rather are absolute masters at copying existing things, and they can do so remarkably quickly and pivot faster than most manufacturing regions. So keeping the actual goods out of their actual hands is wise for many companies. It’s not that often that they buy competitors’ products like what is common here…for study or whatever…but if they can get them for “free” somehow they most often run with it. Truth.
Matt
None of the knock offs, that I know of, enable you to slowly release the jack load softly, one step at a time. This lack of adjustment limits the usefulness of the clamp. I bought the Dewalt version which I think is superior to all of them, including Viking and I use it to raise one side of a heavy laboratory instrument and then use the soft release to lower it back down to the counter. The Instrument is $60,000 so I don’t want to drop it.
CMF
For the most part, most of these knockoffs are just regular squeeze clamps, with the base and clamp changed. Same system and like you said, do not allow to lower at a slowly or softly.
The example you state is one of the few instances that spending the money is needed and worth it.
I haven’t noticed the Dewalt in store, if I see on, I will try it in store and see how it feels and works…nice to know that you (and I think someone else stated the same) feel the Dewalt is better than the Viking.
fred
Interesting observation. Also good to know that the Dewalt was not just another copy – but added some value to the original design. Perhaps for many users and uses the soft letdown is of lesser value because the load (like a cabinet) has either been screwed to the studs – or leveled on legs or shims. But it’s a nice added feature if it works well. I use hydraulic toe jacks to raise shop machinery which also permit slow letdown – avoiding breaking not only the machine (no delicate scientific instrument here) base – but also preventing damage to the floor. The lifting foot on toe a toe jack does need more clearance than a Viking Arm – but they can lift a lot more (5-to-20-ton ratings are typical).
Robbie
Woodpecker tools are overpriced, there mft top is 2×4 birch is $400, their “ framing squares” are $400, their right angle clamping blocks are $300, the Viking arm is also overpriced, I bought the dewalt version for $60 I was very impressed with the quality and beefieness, the dewalt has the lifting mechanism inverted you push down on the handle to lift the arm, that feature alone makes it more useable, when setting doors you can use your foot to operate the jack, it also adjusts up and down, the dewalt is not a cheap knock off.
If woodpeckers and Viking would price there products appropriately, I feel the Viking arm should be $100 not $200 they would keep imitators from bring products to market, they left that door open, massca also sells kreg jig clones, so I have no sympathy for them.
As Fas as their patent, the Viking arm is just a spreader clamp that is beefed up, Irwin has been making attachments for their clamps for years, I don’t think Vikings patent will stand its not a new product.
JR Ramos
In the US the only patent they have is for the lowering mechanism – not raising or overall form, just the lowering mechanism. That is where their beef lies with Irwin/DeWalt. In the EU they were awarded a patent for the overall design as well, which does seem silly to us here since the caulking gun type mechanism has been around for decades with caulking guns, derivatives there, and most quick-grip type clamps. They applied for that general patent here in the US, too, but it was denied – they didn’t appeal and it’s now considered abandoned, but the patent for the lowering mechanism stands. Unlikely that it would be invalidated if challenged but SBD certainly has the funds and resources to try that if they want (actually it wouldn’t cost them much more than a pleading and legal fees until/unless the federal court were to grant institution for the challenge and at that point the costs ramp up exponentially no matter the outcome).
fred
At $60 – you got a bargain. It looks like SBD woke up to the potential for a higher profit on this item – so they doubled the price – now $120.
https://www.amazon.com/Dewalt-DWHT83550-TOUGHSERIES-Construction-Jack/dp/B0D45TC9D1
Stuart
It launched at the same price ($120); I’ve never seen it for $60. Maybe they’re mistaken or found a price mistake somewhere.
Lyle
I bought the Dewalt version from Home Depot for $120.
JR Ramos
I just received these from Woodpeckers and I have to say that if you want a decent pair of cheapies, these are indeed one of the better choices and the closeout price is a real bargain even with shipping.
These are far more robust than the majority out there, with a cast aluminum (or zinc?) trigger body and trigger grip which is riveted to a steel lever arm. I’m sure these are not as strong as the Viking but the casting looks good and as if it shouldn’t fail within its lower weight rating. The cam plates are nice and thick as they should be. The footprint is quite a bit smaller, however, and the toes are not tapered, but they are beefy 3.7mm plates and easy to replace later if need be or with some modified sizing. 2-3/8″ deep by 2-3/4″ wide with only a short 3/4″ lifting shelf. Only a 5″ lift, which I missed in the ad copy and assumed was the usual 8″ but that will handle the majority of what I’ve used these things for. The metal+steel trigger handle is the real winner compared to most others.
I could tell from the pics that they were better than the nicer plastic models but these are nicer than I expected…definitely worth the $20 if you want to take advantage of the price and don’t feel like you’ll be harming anyone in the process.
Goodie
It’s been interesting watching JessEm (the company founded by the inventor of the router lift) diversify its’ product offerings. They seem to be going after a lot of the Woodpecker’s market for bespoke tools and measuring/layout gear. Their prices are high, but I think their product is higher quality.