TRACER ProScribe Tool Reviews

Video transcript

xHi guys, Expert Trades have very kindly sent us the TRACER ProScribe. Which, I'm not much really for scribing with, so we're going to give it a go. See how easy it is to use. But we'll show the first, that it's quite handy wee thing. It comes in a great wee case, which is good for me, because well, I like losing stuff.

And I like the TRACER pencils, I actually carry one every day as it is, but the good thing is here, it even comes with a spare one. So when I do, well, set it down somewhere and it gets borrowed by another tradesmen, which of course never happens. It comes with everything you need. There's the ProScribe down at the bottom, the pencil with the great wee sharpener inside of it and spare leads.

But we'll put it together here, I've got a wee bit of skirting board here I'm going to mark out, and we'll see what it looks like. As you can see it's very good quality, it's well built, everything locks in place exactly where you want it, just tighten some wee screws up.

The pencil which you can take out your pocket of your trousers, you don't have to necessarily keep it in it and you're ready to go. As you can see you've a wee bit of skirting board here I'm going to cut down. Excuse the floor, it's been under repairs until after the fireplace has been changed.

Let's see how we get on. Now, as I said, I'm not much good with this here so it's going to be a bit of a learning curve here for all of us. Excuse me while my old body gets down on the floor. Try do this here before the dog comes in and drives me crazy. So, I'm basically going to try to scribe from here. I do not scribe. So I'm as much of a novice as anything else, as you can see, because I'm not able to make this work. I think if I do it right... hang on. Just give me a second, I'll just see what if I can adjust it, here we go, that made it easier.

Right, let's try this here again. So I go from the bottom, go up. I'm sorry if I'm out of focus here. This is my fault, not the pen's. As you can see, if I knew what I was doing it would be a lot neater. That should give me a nice neat fit, and we're going to cut it out and give it a go.

Out here where it's lovely and sunny, and I've actually been sent at the same time this wee SMART Blade which, I use SMART Blades quite a bit so we're going to try cutting this here, see how we get on. Bare with me a sec.

So SMART Blade's on the Milwaukee, takes two seconds to change and we're going to try cutting this here out. I'm not going to bore you with that but I'll tell you how well it cuts. But I don't think I could do it one-handed while holding the phone at the same time.

As you can see, the blades done quite a nice cut, I can't really say an awful lot about my cutting skills I just noticed here but we'll try it. We'll try it out, we'll try it anyway. Let's see how well it fits. I said, I wouldn't mind a bit more exact, a bit more of my scribing ability a bit more so than the actual tool itself. If I actually cut it the proper length that would really help, but as you can see even my poor cutting ability and poor scribing ability, the shape is perfect. So the tool itself, I must admit, it's quite an impressive wee thing.

So as you can see, it wasn't too bad. Would I recommend this wee tool? Yes I would. It's a great wee thing, I do like TRACER products. I have the marker, I have a pencil already, I already have spare lead, so this is just a spare one for me that's even nicer. But if need be, I can have this here in the back of the van, bring it out whenever I need it and hopefully learn how to use it a wee bit better.

Video transcript

Hey guys, Joe, from Westons Plumbing and Heating. I've been checking out the TRACER ProScribe.

It does do its job. Yes, it can scribe. It can be adjusted. It can do everything that it says it can do, but it's also very clunky. Compared to other ones like a Trend model, you haven't got to undo every little bolt and slide it around to do everything. You can actually use it one-handed a Trend, you just roll it out and it will give you the dimension you need.

This one you've got to sort of set it all up and then use it, which is fine, because if you're doing the same measurement, it's perfect. Because you can set it up. It won't move on you. But if you just want something quick, because you've got a bit of wood and you're trying to get it scribed in, it's sometimes a little bit better just to get the Trend model because you can literally use it one-handed. You roll the bottom and it'll open it up, close it down. As long as your pencil's in at the right point, it does what this one does on the scribe side of things.

This one's very good because you can actually do circles. A lot of people, you can just use a hole saw, draw around that, but that's actually quite handy for this, because you can clearly show where pipes and things are going to go and it looks nicer than just a handheld one. I do like the long pencil point. The actual pencil itself is great because you can set it up for longer holes. You don't have to adjust that. You can just click the button and it'll put the pencil lead out. So that's a lot better.

And to be honest, this one does feel better than a lot of the others. It is a better build, I think, but maybe they've made it slightly overcomplicated for what I need it for. I do a lot of bathrooms and do bits of kitchens. So I'm scribing in flooring, the odd end panel, bit of skirting. I'm a plumber, so I'm not really going to be doing too much woodwork, but it did come in handy when we was doing a bath, because we had to cut around for the feet for the wood and things like that. So it did really help out with that. When we had to do a bit of boxing in around some pipe work, helped with that.

But I ended up going back to my other one just because it was easier to use. I am going to keep using this one, getting more and more used to it, because probably the more I use it, the easier it'll become, and the more user-friendly it'll be. It's just like anything new, you've got to play with it until you've sussed it and worked out exactly the best way to use it yourself. Everyone uses tools differently.

So yeah, overall, very good build, looks nice. The case is sturdy. So I haven't got to worry about it breaking. And I do like the case. I don't know, if I show you that. It's a very sturdy case. So literally when I was done, I just put it with me tools, threw it in the van. Didn't have to worry about anything getting broken. So great for that.

But I think it does too many things that I don't need it to do so they could make a more basic version of the same tool and it would probably do 90% of what I need. But like I say, I'm not a carpenter, I'm not a tiler, I'm a plumber. So it's come in handy for me doing a bit of flooring, doing a bit of boxing in, on the basic stuff. But yeah, I'd rate it out of 10 stars, I'd rate it 9 just because it is sturdy and strong. But that one star is because it's a bit of a faff to use.

Video transcript

Hi, I'm going to give a Tool Talk review today on the TRACER ProScribe. What you get in the pack is some instructions, a TRACER Deep Hole marking pencil. These are excellent. They get a lot of use for me in making the marks for marking out scribing and so on. You also get a pack of refill leads and yellow coloured pencils, which are useful for different types of materials. And then you also get the actual ProScribe. As you can see, it's made of plastic, metal bottom with a scribing point. It can be used as a compass and different ways of scribing.

I've used this on the last job hard. It was okay. It did the job scribing in some flooring. But the main problem I had with it was these tightening bolts. Despite how much you put on them, they would come loose whilst you were doing your scribe and it meant that the scribe was unreliable and it took a bit of effort to stop that happening. So that's one thing they could work on, a different sort of way of tightening the points that move on the actual scribe.

But overall it was a handy bit of kit, come in use for doing the scribing the floors. It will come in use for me scribing any piece of wood to wonky walls and so on. And yeah, it's not too bad. That one disadvantage though, not tightening up effectively. So I'd like to thank Tool Talk for giving the opportunity to test this out and thank you very much. See you later.