Customer Reviews

Fastcap 3HANDCPACK 3rd Hand Contractor Poles, 4-Pack

5 star:		(43)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I, like many others liked the price. I own 8 Zip Wall poles and figured the 3rd Hand product would come in handy should I need more poles to create a barrier. I must state that my main reason for purchasing the 3rd Hand contractor pack was to aid me in a crown-molding job. I liked what I read about these units and it seemed like they would fit the bill with the square feet and all.

I will start by saying that the company must have had many complaints with the poles being used to put up plastic barriers. The box that mine came in show several different uses for the poles in line drawing form. The picture of the poles being used for plastic barriers was covered up suggesting the possibility that they received some grief from Zip Wall, or customers frustrated by the attempt to use them in place of Zip Walls.

Personally I find the 3rd hand product quite heavy and cumbersome to use for supporting plastic sheets. Especially when trying to get them up to 9 & ½ foot ceilings! I had to use duct tape to get the plastic that high. Second, after I jacked the pole up onto the main tee and moved onto the second pole, the first pole came crashing down behind me as I jacked the second pole a little too much causing loss of tension on the first. OK so the 3rd Hand failed to please me on plastic barriers on tall metal grid ceilings. Onto the next project.

For crown molding, the 3rd Hand is just that. They performed as expected. The slanting feet and square top plate kept the poles where I placed them. Laying the crown molding on top of the poles was a learning experience. When installing a 16' length of crown, you must place your ladder in the middle of the length so that you don't tip the center pole over or as in my first attempt, the 2 middle poles. Very noisy when they hit the floor. Once that lesson was behind me the rest of my 3rd Hand experience was non eventful.
Back to grid ceilings, the poles are nice for jacking up the grids to help in leveling and also holding fluorescent fixtures while replacing grid work on wall relocations. I also used all four poles to raise the ceiling enough to slide a completely dry walled section to a new location 4 feet away without getting hung up on the ceiling grid. Just had to be careful the all the poles had the same tension on them.

I agree with most other posters about the button problem. Very difficult to get them pushed in to raise or lower the pole. Raise the pole too high and you can't reach the jack handle. The solution there was to turn to pole upside down just to avoid readjustment with those button locks.

The weight of all four poles in the bag is amazingly heavy. 8 Zip Wall poles are half the weight and being all aluminum well balanced. The tension mechanism on the Zip Wall units is a pleasure to use over the 3rd Hand unit. In all fairness, Zip Wall poles are not very good to use for crown molding and too light to use for holding grid ceilings up. Each of these poles has their place. Used on a regular basis it is best to use what each one was designed for, or be aggravated by the lack of compatibility that each system exhibits.

I too have the same complaints about the storage bag being a few inches too small and lastly, would somebody please tell me what all the different bushings on the large plates are for? I'm still trying to figure out how the large feet attach. O NO! Not the directions!!! Still confused, I love my Zip Wall poles.

There are already many positive reviews out there so I'll focus on some of the issues from the bad ones.

1) These poles supposedly didn't work for dust barriers. They now come with a "magnetic dust foot" that should make hanging plastic sheeting a breeze. Stand the pole up (see below), attach the sheeting to the pole with the magnetic feet while on the ground, then raise the poles up. Pretty easy.

2) These poles supposedly tipped over easily. The kit now comes with "universal feet" that allow the poles to stand up on their own. Tipping shouldn't be a problem.

3) The poles are supposedly too long for cabinets. My poles came marked with a location to cut them at if you want them short enough for cabinets. No need to worry about voiding the warranty.

4) Some people find the poles too heavy. Unless all you want to use them for is plastic sheeting, in my opinion, the heavier they are, the heavier-duty they are, and I'll take heavy duty over light weight any day of the week.

5) The poles supposedly don't fit in the bag. They do fit if you take the feet off, and the feet (including the universal feet and the magnetic dust feet) will all fit in the bag with the poles. I would guess you could probably get a couple more poles in there too. It would be nice if there was a bag for the feet or something so they didn't end up all over the inside of the bag, but just about anything would do for that.

6) The Zipwall system is supposedly better because it comes with the foam rails. Rip a 2x4 down into four 1x2's and attach some cheap weatherstripping available at any home improvement store. You now have your foam rails.

The only things I can see that's better about the Zipwall is that a) it's lighter, which is only better if ALL you're going to use it for is plastic sheeting, and b) the telescoping feature is probably a little faster than the design of the 3rd hand.

I can't see spending over $100 more for the Zipwall when you lose so much functionality.

Excellent tool. I was able to fit all four 3rd Hand Poles, four Universal Feet, four Dust Clips, eight head/foot pads, and a 30 page catalog from Fastcap into the bag supplied with the unit. The secret is to make the poles as small as possible (remove the Universal Feet, screw the bottom support all the way up into each pole and alternate the way the poles are placed into the bag), then place the Universal Feet into the bag.

The 3rd Hand Poles are very sturdy, and are easily elongated or shortened. They perform as advertised and are a great help when installing long runs of crown molding.

I had been looking for an excuse to buy a system called "Zip Wall". I finally have a job where I really needed some way of controlling dust. When I searched for "Zip Wall" it also came up with this competing system. I was intriqued and pleased to see that the FastCap product was approximately half of what the other one was. I did a lot of research and was not helped by the add copy which leaves a lot out. After almost ordering two of the dual packs I carefully read the copy again on several sites and was able to determine that the Contractor Pack was the better deal including the big feet and the bag, which is quite usable with the feet removed.

Ok... I needed the 3rd hands for controlling dust when I removed the old plaster from wall bricks so I could repair them. Since this is interior work I really need to keep the dust from getting all over the place.

The first part of the job however was to fix a crack in the poured basement wall. The crack runs from floor to ceiling. The top of the crack runs behind a cold air return duct which I needed to either cut in half or move a lot of sheet metal to remove. Since the 3rd hand can support 70 lbs. each I supported the item with 3 of them and cut it in half then lowered it to the floor.

Once the crack was repaired I now needed to reinstall the sheet metal. However the plaster ceiling (in a hundred year old house) had sagged and hung down about 3 inces and I could not get the duct to fit properly let alone support it properly [I didn't want to use a really long screw since I was afraid further sagging would rip it out].

I used the 3rd hands to gradually lift the ceiling running 4 1/2 inch screws with fender washers about every 6 inches into sound joists. I only raised the ceiling about 2 feet out from the duct area, but am sure I could have done the entire ceiling in this manner in much less time than any other way I have heard of. Of course the 3rd hands let me support the duct again as I secured it to the ceiling.

Oh yea... It does make a great dust barrier too.

In short I was quite pleased with the strength and utility of this product. This is my first review of any product anywhere. It has already paid for itself and I am not finished with the job...

This is not a Zip Wall System. If you want to erect a plastic dust containment system, buy the Zip Wall. It's far superior for that purpose. If you want a "3rd" had to hold sheetrock against a ceiling, or other heavy duty overhead, or even some horizontal tasks,this is the one to buy. You can exert considerable force with these and if you work alone, you'll find many uses for the 3rd hands. I agree the pins are a little hard to depress, and the bag is a little too small, minor issues. However this is a heavy duty system that compliments the Zip Wall. In my opinion, buy them both, you won't be dissapointed.

This thing is great! I created a plastic wall for a kitchen remodel and saved my house from becomming a dust ball. I also found that it was easy to reconfigure the wall when needed during the demo work. Another handy use was installing the remodel style high hat lights. I used one unit to hold the light tight into the cieling so I could set the clips and lock the fixture in place. If you have ever tried this in a plaster (1" thick) cieling you know how hard this is. The 3rd hand did the trick. I have read some complaints about the tool bag included with the contractor pack. I found that everything fit nicely into the bag. As long as you pop off the feet (they pop off really easy by the way) they slip right in allong with all of the accessories.

I had previously purchased the zip wall package and have been satisfied. The 3rd hand poles do a great job once they are up and they cost a quarter of the price of the zip wall(plus it comes with a carrying bag..nice). The zip wall is much more user friendly if you are by yourself. But, if you are working with someone that can give you a hand setting it up with the plastic then you're good to go. Beware though....the black pads do leave black marks on finished walls and ceilings if you bump into them.

What a great pack of tools for your every day contractor/ carpenter. I use three 3rd Hands to build a dust barrier and the fourth to help with trim work. The bag comes in handy as long as you remove the universal "big" feet from the 3rd Hands. What a great bargain for a multiuse tool!

After filling our house with plaster dust for about the third time during renovations, I finally got smart and decided to get a plastic-sheet wall solution. I looked at both the ZipWall and these and found the FastCap poles to have a more substantial, sturdy feel.

At the time I bought mine, you could purchase plastic clips that helped hold sheeting on top of the poles--they work quite well, though the plastic still slips out a bit at times, requiring some care when you put up your plastic house. I don't see the clips listed on FastCap's site or here on Amazon anymore, though, so I'm not sure if they're still available.

My model (purchased about six months ago) also had a bag that was about two inches too short to hold the poles comfortably with their feet installed. It was easier (if annoying) to remove the feet and then put them in the bag seperate from the poles. FastCap's support people told me that they were considering a longer bag with a later revision. Not sure if that's happened or not.

All-in-all, a worthwhile purchase that has saved me hours of cleanup during several messy projects.

The 3HANDCPACK 3rd Hand Contractor Pack is one of those things you can do without forever until the first time you use them and then they become indispensable. Dust control in a customers house is or should be of paramount importance. Using these tools allows you to set up an effective dust containment area in a matter of minutes. I myself have been the victim of a sub-contractor that did not provide adequate dust control. This shows a total lack of professionalism. That contractor has not and will not work for me again.
As stated in another review the push pins used to adjust the height can be aggravating but would not stop me from purchasing another set of poles.
The carrying bag that comes with the set is well constructed and is very good for keeping all the separate components together.