Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

according to people

184
people found this helpful, as of 2023
ranked #184,567 most helpful out of 571,544,897 reviews
★★★★★
Lower price, better quality!
I bought this clamp, the Bora WTX and the Emerson CW-50, the wide jaw version. I'm bad at making decisions and wanted to see all 3 in front of me. Here's what I came up with: Profile: The Bora and Emerson were the same height (37/64") and the ProGrip was about 3/64" taller(40/64" or 5/8"). Advantage to Bora and Emerson as your saw will be able to cut deeper (not by much) if you cut the direction that puts your circular saw motor on top of the clamp. Width: The CW-50 was the widest (too wide for me) with the Bora being slightly narrower and the ProGrip being there narrowest. About an inch narrower than the others. Jaw width/depth: Emerson and Bora had similar width jaws, and the Emerson and ProGrip had similar height jaws. Bora had about 1/4" taller jaws and ProGrip was about 3/8" narrower on jaw width. Clamping: Emerson and ProGrip have the bar running down the middle that the sliding clamp grips, similar to a pipe clamp. And the Bora grips micro edges cut into the walls that the sliding clamp runs between (shown in picture). The Bora had the longest handle by far but the lowest clamping pressure, which seemed weird as the handle gives you the most leverage but it was also pretty flimsy. Emerson and ProGrip have similar handle sizes but Emerson had a lot of clamping strength, too much in my opinion. I understand it's supposed to leave marks in the bar when gripping but these were deep (pictures shown) and the pressure seemed unnecessarily high. I'm not using the clamp to bring boards together, I'll leave that to the parallel clamps. ProGrip has the ability to grip that hard at the max setting but also had lower pressures in case you don't want to smash your piece. Pictures are also attached of the marks left in the ProGrip bar, they're the less deep ones. Weight: They all weighed pretty much the same. I couldn't tell anything apart from holding them. Final Thoughts: They were all straight out of the box but always check for squareness when clamping. No reason not to. The bar running the length of the ProGrip didn't deflect as much as the Emerson with pressure applied to the side which points towards a thicker/harder metal, a bonus. The sliding clamp on the Bora had a tendency to slide around while handling the clamp which made it hard to set it off to the side and keep the distance the same. The sliding clamp on the Emerson was hard to disengage after releasing and the width of it just made it hard to move around. It also had a low profile edge which I think could lead to your saw/jigsaw/router jumping up on it if you don't always have a good down pressure. The sliding clamp on the ProGrip is accessible from the top which was very handy and easy to disengage. The ProGrip in general just felt sturdy in my hands. The others were made from softer materials which were lighter but they were bigger which accounted for the weights being similar. And the three clamping settings are not a gimmick, they're very nice to have. I did a detailed review as this ProGrip is relatively new and I was kind of skeptical of the people who just give it 5 stars and say, "Works great!" But for the price, it's the winner between the 3 so don't hesitate to buy.
March 2020 · Tools and Home Improvement · verified purchase
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