I'm considering buying a 4 or 6-point, crank stringer, about $300-350 cdn. From what I've read (Dinkalot and others) it seems that many brands' OEM is actually Eagnas. Is there any advantage from not buying directly from Eagnas? E.g. Watdon seems to provide good service, ATS looks like an option. I'm thinking about cost, and also what would happen if I had to deal with after purchase support issues such as replacement parts or warranty. Essentially, after reading about Eagnas experiences, will these stores "go to bat" for me if I have problems?
Speaking for WatDon, they are absolutely magnificent. Every order arrives promptly, every query is dealt with comprehensively. From our (the buyer's) perspective, there is a huge advantage where the seller isn't a world-wide multi-million pound conglomerate - places like WatDon NEED to keep their customer base happy, as they haven't got trillions to spend on advertising and rely on people seeking them out. I got a Pro's Pro Pilot from them, and I'm hard pressed to see a difference between this and an Eagnas Combo 810 (except the colour).
If you find one at that price point let me know. Most come from the U.S and the shipping and brokerage will high.
I've ordered a Pro's Pro Shuttle Express from Watdon in UK. The total including shipping (but of course not any duties or Canadian taxes yet) is in this range. I'll post full details of my experience when this thing arrives.
Here's my experience for people who may want to get these from UK into Canada. Ok, it has arrived in less than 10 days to Vancouver to my workplace's mail department. The mail department sometimes takes a while (up to 5 days extra) to sort and contact us so I'm not sure what it'd be if it were sent to a residential address. It looks like it was sent by air, when into Canada it was handled by Canada Post. No noticeable rough handling. The weight is about 10kg (22 lbs). The cost of the machine including shipping is 173GBP ($350 CND). I was charged $40 customs fees etc by Canada. I was hoping they wouldn't charge but $40 isn't bad. Everything inside looks ok but there's no manuals or instructions. I've already assembled it but I've emailed Watdon to see if there is supposed to be any. The swappable/removable handle for the tension crank seems to fit into the square of the tensioner a bit loosely/sloppy for my preference. I'm not sure if this is typical. I'm going to ask them about this too. The rest of the machine has fairly nice fit and finish. Still waiting for my strings, extra clamps, string mover, etc which are coming coming from HK (mybadmintonstore). They were ordered a day or so before I ordered the stringing machine.
Here's some more info for Canadian stringing buyers. Ordered 3 separate batches of strings, tools, and grommets from Mybadmintonstore.com . It took about 2 weeks to arrive in Vancouver via regular post. 3rd package was by registered post and took about 1 week. Everything was packaged nicely and no duties or taxes were charged. Side story - my first stringing not including the Nanospeed 10000 with 50lb fishing line @16lbs. Fishing line is vulnerable to clamp damage and it snapped at 20lbs. 1st real stringing was on my SO's Carlton with Gosen Pro 66. I didn't check the tension properly. I didn't notice until all the mains were done and upped the tension for the crosses 2lbs and rechecked the pull with my Berkley fish scale ($27cdn) ... hmm, a bit high at 35-36lbs. Had to cut the strings and start over at 26/28
