Customer Reviews

PikStik Pro Aluminum Reacher, 32 Inch, Orange

5 star:		(67)
4 star:		(23)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(12)
1 star:		(19)

 

 

YOU WILL LOVE THIS. I am well pleased with this product. I have used pics sticks for years, both the plastic ones and the metal ones. I'm very rough on them and the plastic ones break occasionally (I try to pick up objects that are much too heavy). I have used a metal one now for almost a year with no signs of wear. I recently bought two of them from Amazon as gifts. The price at Amazon is less than one half of what I was paying at the hardware store. You can actually pick a straight pin off of the wooden floor with this -- it really works, I have done it many times.

This is a quality product at a great price. The 32" length is great for most applications. It is better made and easier to use that most other grabbers. I have very limited walking and bending over ability so I use grabbers for most anything (newspapers, pens, paperclips, empty soda bottles, dead bugs, etc). My only complaint is it will NOT pick up one sheet of paper due to the jaw pads being too slick. I am attempting to fix this by putting some duct tape on the jaws. The locking feature (lock the jaws shut) works much better than other models! I additionally like the ability to rotate the head 90 degrees.

Overall the device is ok. Despite what the manufacturer says about the product, you are not able to pick up a 5 pound item. You can not pick up anything that has some weight or is bulky. There is not enough leverage to pick up items with slight weight on it. The device is only as good as the individual's hand and arm strength. I would not recommend picking up overhead objects. I'm currently 8 months pregnant, so for me it's a benefit when picking up light pet toys, individual clothes, light towels for laundry, papers etc. If you need to pick up light objects it's great. Or if you have items located in the back of cabinets and you need to bring them up front for your hand to grab this device is good.

I have owned 3 PikStiks. While this may sound like a satisfied user, I'd buy a competitor product if I could find one more durable. The first one I bought at a local outlet failed after frequent and sustained use during one season of picking up leaves. I wrote to the company's website to tell them about it, and they were nice enough to send me another unit that appeared sturdier. It was the unit currently sold on Amazon and described as the 32 inch Pro Aluminum, Orange. In Feb 2007, I mailed it back to the manufacturer after having it also fail. Same reason...picking up leaves. I told them I wasn't trying to get another free one, that I had already ordered a replacement from Amazon, and was just suggesting they engineer a sturdier product. It's now early 2008 and approaching the end of another leaf picking-up season. Yeah, the 3rd has just broken. So am ordering my 4th from Amazon. The price is right and the unit does work well for months at a time. However, the jaw grippers tend to not completely close after heavy use, and the plastic breaks if you try to adjust them. The big problem though is the internal unit which fails after repeated use with no way to access internal parts, cables, springs etc to try to fix it.

I bought this to assist in my community's "Adopt a Highway" clean-up efforts, I was tired of bending over to grap every stray can and scrap of litter. It's great, well designed and manufactured, able to snap up the littest objects effortlessly. My back thanks me and I'll be purchasing 10 more for the other volunteers.

I have used this item now for several weeks and found that it is a lifesaver. I am handicapped following major brain surgery and am not permitted to bend over. With the PikStik, I am able to pick up anything from as large as a "Wet Ones" container to as small as a fingernail clipping. I am amazed at how it picks up the tiniest object from the floor. It is also very sturdily built; I can see that it will hold up a long while.

Pik Stik reacher/grabber did exactly what it said. I used the 32 in size to pick up items from the floor and in the yard. I'm 5'4" and did not have to bend over to pick up things. It picks up coins, small pieces of paper, as well as jars, and leaves/gumballs from outdoors. I am completely satisfied.

If I had written this review a month ago, I would probably have given four stars -- But last week the device broke, having been used only occasionally for less than a year. That's just not good enough.

When we first got our PikStik I was glad to have it, because it was handy for picking up objects that fell behind large cabinets, or otherwise reaching things in inaccessible places. This length (32") does seem to be a pretty good compromise length, in being able to extend your reach a useful amount, but still being short enough to store easily.

Pretty soon we discovered that the tips of the arms are a bit slippery in use -- even though those same tips seem reasonably "grippy" when you touch them with your fingers. That impression is misleading, because anything with a slick surface tended to slide out of the arm tips, unless we really applied a lot of force to the handle, thus squeezing the object really tightly. This isn't always possible.

The metal tubing and the plastic grabbing arms all seem pretty strong. BUT what makes this thing work are the handle and spring mechanisms. The handle is a spring-loaded lever that extends the force of your grip all the way to the end of the tube. At that end there are other springs, strong enough to open the arms fully when you let go of the handle.

I suppose if they put really beefy springs in this thing it would be heavier and people would complain about the weight. But that's what it needs. We used ours maybe a few times a week, if that -- and only for 6-8 months. Then, all of a sudden, it was no longer able to close the jaws more than about halfway.

The malfunction occurs regardless of whether we put the jaws in the horizontal or vertical position (an adjustability function that is nice, but only really needed on rare occasion). I tried tinkering with the locking switch (also nice in theory, but for our purposes never really needed).

None of that tinkering worked, and I see nothing else that one can do. I like to try to fix things rather than chucking them, but I can see no way to open this up for repair.

It didn't cost all that much, but it was more than zero. I haven't checked to see if there's a warranty, but in any case we don't have any of the original packaging, and dealing with returns and shipping and whatnot seems like a lot of work.

Basically, I would not trust the mechanism inside this device to stand up to a lot of use, since it did not even stand up to the mild use we gave it. I thought I'd be using this thing for at least a few years but instead it's a few months and goodbye. Nice to have at first, but overall very disappointing.

I bought this item to pick the dead leaves off of hanging plants that are out of reach. It works great. I bought this brand due to another recommendation on amazon, and I think the gripping feature works well. Plus, the trigger handle isn't too large for a small hand. I only wish there were longer options, as I have 23' ceilings and have plants hanging far from reach.

PikStik Pro Alluminum Reacher 32 inch is just what I expected a quality light weight device! I was so happy I decided to buy two more but at 42 inches. Unfortunately, it was too long and hard to use! The 32 inch is ideal for the daily routine chores around the house. Especially when you have a new 50lb 6 months choc. labador.