Has there ever been a thread about the worst quality tools you ever saw?

[Mark914]

Dug out this combination set that might be from the 70’s -80’s?? And the more I looked at it the worse it got. Every single piece said “Japan” on it. The cheapest looking poorest quality stamped wrenches and sockets. The plastic pouches were kinda cool, and I liked the little pry bar. Obviously any tool is better than having no tool when you’re in a pinch.

 

[JSutter]

654

 

[alwaysFlOoReD]

I had a set of twist drill bits where the first one I tried to use, untwisted.
Sorry, no pics.

 

[PFSard]

Every single piece said “Japan” on it. The cheapest looking poorest quality stamped wrenches and sockets.

I am old enough (72) to remember when "Made in Japan" was synonymous with "junk". Datsun rust buckets come to mind. The times they have been changing.

 

[four.cycle]

@Mark914 - Your Japan-made ratchet might be a "Premier" - a Japanese-made knock-off of the New Britain original.
Yes, there IS a thread on this website somewhere discussing "worst tool brands ever" but it devolved into a mish-mash of nonsense, as I recall.
I would submit that if you were to do a "man on the street" survey among this membership, your lead contenders would be

Globemaster (imported from all over)
Oxwall (Flushing, NY)
Zomax (imported from all over)
Fix-n-Save (Japan)
G.M. Mfg. Co. (Long Island City, NY)
Meteor Mfg. Co. (Buffalo, NY)

... but not necessarily in that order.

Beyond those it gets pretty subjective - most all of them produced at least one or two turkeys - it's just the nature of the beast.

 

[d42jeep]

What really needs to be said?
-Don

 

[d42jeep]

This vise had some of the softest jaws I ever experienced. Nice looking though.
-Don

 

[RoninB4]

-There's plenty of candidates out there and I'm also old enough to remember when "Made In Japan" was synonymous with poor quality. I suspect a lot of the disappointment can be from expecting a kitchen drawer, housewife tool to stand up to industrial applications. I've purchased low priced things too but when they fail it just confirms my expectations for low priced objects. I try to examine what went into manufacturing something, looking for clues as to what price point it was made that tells me if it's a POS or not.

-As for poorly made brands, it's pretty much a crapshoot now. Even once respectable brands are striving for greater profits by making cheap **** in the third world. Brands I don't buy (Ryobi for example) might be ok for others. I have a battery powered mini chain saw I paid $35 for. When it self destructs I won't regret the purchase. Expectations for duty life performance vs. price is in the eye of the beholder.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

Has there ever been a thread about the worst quality tools you ever saw?

If you mean down here on the Vintage Tools Discussion forum - where we discuss vintage tools, no. A few of the mass marketed "economy line" junk drawer type tools popular in the postwar boom, collectible for their history as exemplars of that type of tool, have their own threads. 4.c mentioned a few (e.g., Oxwall, G.M. Co.) You can find them in the A-Z Index of threads in the Sticky at the top of THIS forum. We also have a thread on gimmicky vintage tools, which also tend to be associated with low quality, sometimes erroneously, sometimes accurately, can also be found in the Sticky thread index.

Yes, there IS a thread on this website somewhere discussing "worst tool brands ever" but it devolved into a mish-mash of nonsense, as I recall

It was on the General Tools Discussion forum, as I recall, which is where this one probably belongs, since it will very likely attract lots of examples of modern crappy tools by members who see it in their 'New Posts' feed and don't recognize that it's in the Vintage forum.

 

[four.cycle]

^ Yeah... I didn't think about the "gimmick tools" thread until after I posted that.

I believe THIS is the other thread I was thinking of

 

[Private Lugnutz]

^ Your memory is better than mine! I totally forgot about that thread (and, at 34 posts, without lasting power, never put it in the Index) and I was thinking about a different thread up on General.

 

[Skellyii]

I vote for Globemaster. While from what I understand, they had a line of tools that were OK.

Growing up, my exposure to them was limited to the 99 cent bin at my local grocery store.
We have an existing thread:

LOL - Globemaster tools are now "vintage collectible"

Going back almost sixty years, the Globemaster bin by the checkout counter of the hardware and auto parts stores were where the inexpensive import tools were on sale for .59 or two-for-a-dollar and later, "any tool .99." Just saw on craigslist today a local guy is seeing an opportunity we all...

www.garagejournal.com

 

[four.cycle]

and I was thinking about a different thread up on General.

YES!
the one full of all of the Craftsman black-laminated-wrench-pliers-thingies in it? That black thing that Sears put out at Christmas? (I can't recall the name of it now.)
Yeah... I think there's another thread in "general"!

 

[Beerhippie]

In my "collection", Oxwall, and, of course, this:



Says it goes up to 3/4"/19mm--but it doesn't.

Just occurred to me that I can probably send that to the shotgun slug testing guys on YT and see what happens when it's fired from a 12 ga!

 

[nh_yota]

YES!
the one full of all of the Craftsman black-laminated-wrench-pliers-thingies in it? That black thing that Sears put out at Christmas? (I can't recall the name of it now.)
Yeah... I think there's another thread in "general"!

Robo-Grips?

Yeah they are awful...I gave my dad a couple pairs of them for Christmas 25+ years ago and he still uses them. He is one of those stubborn men who think they can fix anything with a pair of pliers and a worn out Stanley screwdriver. I gave him the Knipex Pliers Wrench a few years ago but I still see those f*ckin useless Robo-Grips in his tool bucket.

 

[four.cycle]

^ that's the one... "Robo Grip" ... I've seen them, but I've never had a pair of them in my hands.
My buddy has a pair of them and I see him break them out every time he pulls out his stuff, but he never actually uses them.
Go figure.

moving right along here....

Just occurred to me that I can probably send that to the shotgun slug testing guys on YT and see what happens when it's fired from a 12 ga!

I think you should try the "Is it a good idea to microwave a _____?" guys.
I'm sure they'd have fun with it!
hey man... is it a good idea to microwave a Magic 8-ball?

Not sure I ever smoked enough dope to try this one at home....

 

[four.cycle]

And as far as "worst tools ever" goes... I recall there were some part numbers from certain vendors I red-lined out of our inventory control books just because the warranty return rate was so disproportionate.
Hollywood Accessories socket sets fell into that category.

stuff that was so bad it ranked up there with the classically bad

truly awful.

inexcusably and irredeemably bad.

But... shamelessly, we sold it to an unwitting public anyway.

Lifetime Guarantee! No questions asked! Just hand the guy a whole new set!

(I mean.... how many other vendors can you buy from where you know you're going to get an 80%-90% net margin?)

 

[four.cycle]

Funny thing.... Russ Horn (Rogovoy & Horn) was the rep for Hollywood, Cal Custom, Hawk, and a mess of other schlock lines we carried...
... but to be perfectly honest the Hollywood Accessories stuff was actually about five rungs up the ladder from "Zomax", and at least three above a line called "Medallion". Only reason we kept buying Medallion was because the rep, Jack Birkby, was one of my old man's drinkin' buddies, and Jack wouldn't leave without a purchase order in hand....

 

[Shiftless]

I nominate the wrenches that used to be provided with assemble it yourself furniture.

 

[DWise]

@Mark914 - Your Japan-made ratchet might be a "Premier" - a Japanese-made knock-off of the New Britain original.
Yes, there IS a thread on this website somewhere discussing "worst tool brands ever" but it devolved into a mish-mash of nonsense, as I recall.
I would submit that if you were to do a "man on the street" survey among this membership, your lead contenders would be

Globemaster (imported from all over)
Oxwall (Flushing, NY)
Zomax (imported from all over)
Fix-n-Save (Japan)
G.M. Mfg. Co. (Long Island City, NY)
Meteor Mfg. Co. (Buffalo, NY)

... but not necessarily in that order.

Beyond those it gets pretty subjective - most all of them produced at least one or two turkeys - it's just the nature of the beast.

But they are my favorites.

 

[lund]

I am old enough (72) to remember when "Made in Japan" was synonymous with "junk". Datsun rust buckets come to mind. The times they have been changing.

I can explain this in part. I am no great expert, but my wife is Japanese and I have traveled there for work a fair amount.

Japanese people are culturally VERY picky about quality broadly speaking compared to the USA. It is also considered dishonorable in Japan to make something poorly. Companies that do not make things well will cease to exist quickly in the picky Japanese consumer market. This is true with food too. Maybe doubly so. But after WWII Japan was so thoroughly destroyed that they did not have the capacity or resources to make good stuff for many years. They did what they could do, and the cheap product lines got them started. BUT as Japan recovered into the 70s and beyond and became more wealthy, their innate cultural tendencies came back quickly and quality shot back up to how their consumers and markets feel that is should be. If you could make something better, you do so with a long range outlook in Japan. In the USA, our businesses are much more profit driven. In China, they are probably even more profit driven than the USA. If one can cheat skimping for lower quality, it is often done in China and might or might not be done in the USA. In Japan, that such skimping on quality is much much less common. They also are willing to live with less profit to do things right. They even have to do so in order to retain domestic market share in a highly competitive Japanese consumer market with their picky consumers.

But Japan is not immune to globalization. The impact has been slower and less pronounced in Japan due to these cultural tendencies for quality. It feels similar to the USA in the 80s or 90s (or a bit better since they may be more careful with their outsources) with domestic production fractions of market and quality. If you shop in Japan, it is shocking how good a lot of the local tools are for much less $ than "tool truck" Snap-On level prices in the USA. In the USA you need a special distributor or to hunt online for higher quality. In Japan you can find it in everyday shops like a home improvement center or brick and mortar tools shops.

 

[niget2002]

Robo-Grips?

Yeah they are awful...I gave my dad a couple pairs of them for Christmas 25+ years ago and he still uses them. He is one of those stubborn men who think they can fix anything with a pair of pliers and a worn out Stanley screwdriver. I gave him the Knipex Pliers Wrench a few years ago but I still see those f*ckin useless Robo-Grips in his tool bucket.

Craftsman made a similar horrible set of tools. My BIL gave me his. They live in the tool bin in the truck because in a pinch, they **** just enough to make any bad situation where you need them just 'that' much worse. But they're awesome when you're somewhere and someone goes, "Does anyone have a wrench I can borrow." You hand it to them and you just know you're getting it back when they're done.

 

[bwringer]

I had quite a few Kmart wrenches, sockets, etc. purchased as a penniless college student in the '80s. Many were made in India (which was several rungs below China at the time) and I honestly had no idea steel, or whatever iron-containing amalgam they were made of, could be so soft and malleable. There was some sort of flaky, peeling coating purporting to be chrome... So much of this stuff spread, snapped, slipped, stripped and fell apart, but it's all I had.

KMart was closer to my house, but over time, and with Craftsman tools I "liberated" from my Dad, and with a Sears credit card with a $300 limit they were foolish enough to issue to me, I built up a better collection of Craftsman stuff.

I finally purged the last of the KMart junk about five years ago. I had hauled it around for decades, and finally the light went on and I realized I could just... throw it away. I didn't even bother donating the KMart stuff because I'd absolutely hate the thought of cursing anyone else with this garbage.

Years later, I was perplexed to see Craftsman brand pop up at KMart. Then KMart itself went down the drain, then Sears, and now there is red packaging around Chinese tools (of actual decent quality, for the most part) under the Craftsman name at Lowe's and in other places. The world of brands and corporations is a bizarre thing indeed.

 

[Beerhippie]

I nominate the wrenches that used to be provided with assemble it yourself furniture.

They still include those "tools". In my shop, they go straight from the packaging to the scrap bucket.

 

[Schurkey]

There's some winners in this photo. Any 12-point flare-nut wrench is unsuitable for automotive use. MAYBE they're appropriate for aviation. I have a complete set of the Bonneys, other than the 13/16--no space in the roll-up pouch for one. Note the thin walls of the "INDIA" 5/8"--11/16" wrench 3rd from left. No brand-name on it...just COO. Craftsman and NAPA wrenches are "OK". Too short, but not death-defyingly weak.