Varsk 10″ Contour Gauge ► Check Amazon
Hey, everyone. I’m out here in the garage, and I’ve got this contour gauge by Varsk we’re going to take a look at today…so stay tuned.
So, you probably remember several months ago I did a review of a contour gauge by RAK Tools, and I was contacted recently to do a review of this contour gauge by Varsk Tools. So, full disclosure, I actually did purchase this tool myself so I could do the most impartial review possible. Let’s get into it!
Alright, so let’s talk real quick about Varsk. They’re based in Mamaroneck, New York, and from what I can tell they don’t have a website…and they have a Facebook page, but there’s really not much on their Facebook page.
This product also is sold on Amazon, so it looks like that’s where they sell all their products if they sell other products besides the contour gauge…and the model number on this particular contour gauge is VAR-350…and it is made in China.
As we talked about before…the main purpose of a tool like the contour gauge is to mimic shapes…so, for example, if you’re putting in tile, and you want to make sure you contour around certain obstacles in the floor…also, if you’re doing auto body repair work, you can use a tool like that to mimic the shape of a panel…and in my case what I was using the contour gauge for was to mimic the shape of the tub so I could transfer that onto the backer board material.
So, as we go along looking at this tool, we are going to compare it a little bit to the RAK contour gauge, just so we have a little bit of a point of reference…I’m not doing a side-by-side comparison per se, but just because we have reviewed the RAK contour gauge in the past, that will give us a little bit of a point of reference to go off.
Alright, so let’s take a look at the features and specifications of this tool. So, other than the 10” that’s mentioned on the box here, I didn’t find any other dimensions anywhere on the packaging. So, we’re going to pull the tape measure out and check all the dimensions for this tool, just like what we did with the RAK contour gauge.
Here’s the tape measure…we’ll get our length…and that looks like about 9-3/4” to me. So, it’s not quite 10” in length. Let’s go ahead and check our width, and I’m just going to measure from the underside of the teeth here up to the top of that tooth…and it’s around 4-7/8”…so that’s one thing I really like about this is that it’s really long. I’m not sure how much difference that’s going to make in most instances, but that’s really a nice thing about this tool…and then the height of the teeth is roughly around ¾”.
In terms of thickness of the teeth, you can see that there are 160 teeth over the 9-3/4”. So, just as a point of reference, there are 180 teeth over 10 inches with the RAK contour gauge.
This tool does have an aluminum lock lever right there…that’s pretty cool. Again, just for reference sake here, this is how the RAK contour gauge’s lock lever operates.
This tool also has graduation markers here, so we’ve got inches right there…centimeters right there…and then it’s double-sided…you can flip it over and you’ve got centimeters up here and inches down there. Also, on the back, I think the RAK contour gauge had this, also, where you’ve got these little in insets right there where you can probably put something like magnets.
The one thing I do like about this tool I thought was pretty cool is on the end you can see right there…and I’ve got this hex key in my hand…right there you can put a hex key in there and tighten this up. So, if you really wanted to lock a shape in place, you can do that pretty easily with this tool. It’s very, very stiff once it gets locked in place.
So, right there, you put your hex key in, and to tighten this up, you turn to the right and then to loosen it up…make it a little looser, you turn to the left…there’s two of them…one on each side of this bar. So, just for demonstration purposes, I actually have dialed this in a little bit. I’m going to pull down on the lever…and that does make it a little bit harder to pull the lever down…you can see that, but once it’s in there, it is locked in place…that is really cool. I like that a lot.
Let’s go ahead and give this a quick test…do a couple demonstrations with this tool…we’ll do that next.
Alright, so we’re going to contour some random items in the garage. Now, this is not the same battery that I used in the other video, so this area down here is a little bit different…we’re going to see how it does anyway…go ahead and press it up against there, and I’m just going to run my fingers along here…seems to work best to do this to get an accurate reproduction. Let me go ahead and lock that in place…that’s about as good as I think I’m going to get it. So, that’s what it looks like right there…not too bad.
One thing I figured out, by the way, it looks like it works best to loosen up these hex screws on the end, make your contour, lock this in place, and then turn the hex and dial it in so that it’s locked in and doesn’t move. Alright, so we’re going to try this hammer, also, just like we did in the other video. Now, I’ve got it with these teeth facing up…go ahead and lock that in place…that looks pretty good…not bad.
Alright, then lastly we’ll try it on this canopy weight…and i’ll run my fingers along here and lock this in place…that’s actually not bad. I would rather have seen more teeth to get a really good reproduction, but this isn’t bad at all. You could probably play around with this a little bit and get a little bit better reproduction, also.
On the DIY Apprentice wrench rating scale, I’m going to give this tool a 4 out of 5.
Pros:
- The size of the tool is very good, with a length of just under 10 inches and a width of a little under 5 inches.
- The tool’s construction is pretty good it…feels like it would hold up over time
- I especially like the hex screws for tightening the gauge so you don’t lose your shape
Cons:
- The number of teeth per inch could be a little bit better for a more accurate shape reproduction
- One minor negative I saw is that the size is 9-3/4” and not the advertised 10”
- Lastly, like the other gauge, I would like to have seen the graduations in a contrasting color such as white, but I understand that this most likely would influence the cost of the tool.
Varsk 10″ Contour Gauge ► Check Amazon
