Honya no longer makes anything for SWC as far as I know, Honya make Skimmers for Octopus and Vertex.

Well, we will likely still stock the most popular models; however, we will most likely up the prices a little to align with all of the other dealers pricing in order not to undercut them.



We will instead promote the SWC line and compete against the BM.

Well the octopus extreme is the same body as the SWC extreme. I think SWC went white though...is that when they dropped honya? Either case I doubt the moved the production of the body to Canada....most likely still in China somewhere.

The volutes for the askoll pumps are CNC I believe....made in Canada. Jay also does mod the other pumps, design etc in Canada.

I don't believe any of the actual pumps he uses are made in Canada are they?

Also where are the bodies made?

Im sorry to be a stickler but implying they are made in Canada is not the whole truth unless they are made in Canada.

Will be following this closely lol I have the BM 180CS at the moment but am looking to upgrade in the near future. I want one with a Askoll pump but they are way over rated for my tank (150gal total) Any chance you could get a smaller model with the askoll pump?

Be a stickler all you want but they are a Canadian brand, and you would be supporting a Canadian company. There aren't too many Canadian companies in this hobby, and let's face it most companies source their parts from all over the world. Volkswagen sources parts from Mexico, Japan, and the US, but we still call it a German car!

Are you kidding me? I already own an SWC skimmer and think their great.

That is not the point. Did you even read my posts? If the body and pump is not made in Canada you can not say the skimmer is made in Canada. Period. Similar to saying VW is a German car, you can say SWC is a Canadian skimmer....made in china and Italy etc.

Ask a VW dealer or Honda or Toyota if the car is strictly made in Germany, Japan etc. and you will get your answer.

I take pride in buying items made in Canada....which is getting harder and harder to do. If SWC did manufacture the skimmer body in Canada I'm sure I would be supporting a Canadian economy a great deal more. I don't blame SWC for outsourcing to China....its the way the global markets are taking away manufacturing. I'm guilty as well for buying tons of cheap imported stuff. It's hard not to go for the value that is there.

On a side note China has become very good at artificially de-valuing it's currency to keep it cheap.

The Canadian content of the SWC product is valid question -particularly since we've just finished saying that the design is more or less a copy. The question is is it relevant to someone looking to buy the product ?

It may just be that a purely Canadian skimmer does not (and may never) exist. In which case, the SWC product is as close as you're going to get.

The folks at SWC could probably build their own bodies and pumps and price the product accordingly. However, there are other businesses out there that specialize in these areas and by virtue of volume, can make a comparable item at a lower cost. I think the folks at SWC are savvy enough to know that in this (or indeed ANY hobby market) it's all about price and that if they made everything themselves and charged 25% more, they'd likely be out of business pretty quick.

I haven't seen any documentation from SWC on their product but I'd like to think that it would be a LOT better than the piece of toilet paper in 'chinglish' that I got with my BM. Also, it sounds like you can actually call SWC and speak with someone who knows what's going on if you have issues and or need parts. All else being equal, just those last 2 items make the SWC a good choice in my book !

SWC VS Bubble Magus!!
 

My SWC 160 cone arrived last week and this ^ along with many positive reviews and the fact that at least some of the $ will stay in canada, was the reason I chose the SWC over the others I was considering (bubble mag-china HQ, price changing deuchery, vertexIN-large footprint were the other reasons). Every little part is readily available for the swcs, and Jayson was great about answering the questions I had for him (would have just bought it from Ian who's great to deal with, if I knew a couple weeks ago he was picking them up...no free biobeads for me...)
Anyway in the end it was an easy choice and for what it's worth I got the new model with the white bubble plate and the box still says made in china, here's a pic