PacToolSA902A01 SA902A.01 Artisan Gecko Gauges

Works great but material slips out had to do some adjustments

I initially gave this a very poor review. However I am changing my review based the amount of time this can help you save with a little bit of Macgyvering of this product. First, to deal with the problem listed by the previous reviewer, I hooked a rubber band from one of the side bolts under the lever and hooked it to the other side bolt. This held the tension enough to hold the gauge in place without pushing the board out too far. The other problem I had was I used with prefinished boards which this product is not recommended for. At first, it was leaving marks on the boards from sliding in and removing gauges. I found that by sliding in a thin shim and levering the boards apart a little you can install and remove without marking up the boards and needing to touch up. Not a perfect product but if you are installing by yourself these things are well worth it.

These almost ended up in the bin without getting a single board up...they are essentially useless for the first (and maybe second) board, but once you've fixed a few boards nice and tight, they get the grip and hold they need to stay in place and support the weight of the heavy FC boards.Building solo, my wife had to help get the first board up on each run, and after that I was good to go.

This product is invaluable if you're installing HP Artisan siding without any help. However, it seems like it's still in the prototype stage and not quite there design-wise. When locked into place, the gauges will pull the piece of siding that they are clamped to away from the siding below making mitered corners more difficult to fit correctly. Also, when clamped in place, the gauges pull themselves away from the angled plane of the siding so when placing the Artisan siding on the rest area, it barely catches on the support. When I called PacTool to complain, they suggested I back off on the clamp pressure making it rest better against the siding, which it does. However, the problem with that solution is Artisan siding is so heavy, the weight of the piece of siding dislodged the loosely clamped gauges and the whole thing fell off and broke the siding. So, that was not a good solution to the problem.

Although these are marketed for use with hardie board siding, they require quite a bit of fiddling to get them to work. I had to find something in the garage to use as a shim in order for the Gecko gauge to clamp the siding. It had to be just the perfect thickness or it would fall off, and the siding would come crashing down. Not good. Once I had jerry-rigged the clamp it held as long as we were very cautious placing the siding. Needs to come with a way to adjust the clamping thickness and not pull away from the wall. So close to being indispensable.... perhaps they work better with a different cement siding product?