How did Snap On become the standard?

[neophyte]

That must be tough with Milwaukee being available at every Home Depot and many farm stores.

I have at least 3 sources for Milwaukee in a 15 mile radius. One of them is half a mile away.

Milwaukee tools several decades or more ago were a brand that usually needed to be purchased thru industrial suppliers, like Grainger, or at least that is what is mentioned in an Older “Whole Earth Catalog” that I still have somewhere.
Rothenberger and Ridgid were a couple of other “industrial brands” that were also mentioned, with both coming a bit down in reputation once Home Depot started selling the brands.

 

[Gmonkee]

I was the parts puller in a shop with four auto body technicians.

Including my brother they all had walls of toolboxes three high and ran debts to fill them with premium tools. 5 digit debts for some.

I had an old mid sized SK handbox with a mix of unremarkable stuff old and new. It was half full.
I went to the boneyard to get parts and clips from the dead ones, could reassemble them again on the repair car without fail.
Nobody cared about anything but results.
I ran zero debt despite the SO and Matco guys being very persuasive.

I was salary, not per job like them. If I took a bit more to assemble it than them they didn't care. They were working on something else at the time.

Blingy tools are nice. I got some myself later on when it made a difference.
Not a lot but what was an upgrade to my kit. It made more sense to wait. I ran no long term debt at all. .

 

[richfinn]

If you are asking, could you physically do the job with inexpensive tools, the answer is yes. YES!

But you would need the start-up capital (money) to buy those tools. And what I consider a "basic set of automotive repair tools" could easily cost thousands even from a discount tool supplier. The days are gone when you could fix anything with a bucket of rusty wrenches and flat head screwdriver. Many GJ members like to spin that yarn. I've worked on cars whose oil drain plugs are 17mm Allens. Who even has a 17mm Allen starting out? It's a necessary tool. And we still have cars with SAE sized components. And if you are doing heavy equipment like @Hakeem, you need full sets of both metric and inches as well as a large range of sizes (which gets expensive).

So this comes up from time to time and it sounds to Maria Antoinette: "The peasants are starving, they have no bread, what shall we do?" "Let them eat cake!". "Buy value tools" is good advice if the person has the money.

Otherwise:
Snap on offers students in tech schools 50% off on all the basic tools. You can also get a much discounted toolbox. You then pay them back weekly over a couple years interest free. So kids can start with 0 money. They can get federal aid to go to tech school, and get essentially free tools from Snap on.

These kids aren't imbeciles. They know debt is bad. Many start out with very bare bones sets of tools. The weekly visit to collect payments, replace anything worn or broken, and offer additional tools to buy is pretty convenient for them. It's not dumb. And they get REALLY nice tools that will seriously last their entire careers.

I've said many times, and no one likes to hear it: At 1/2 off, there's literally no way for these kids to lose. They can and do change their minds and sell off their tools, usually at a profit but at least without losing money. It happens all the time. Some of them buy tools on discount and instantly sell them at a profit. It's possible the profit would pay for cheaper tools. I wouldn't be surprised if kids did that.

Maybe this is why Snap on is the default standard. Maybe it's nothing more than the tech school discount. I've never seen an ad for Snap on. Not sure what marketing others have mentioned. Maybe its just the discount program.

Motorsports Sponsorships

Product Placement on TV/Film/YouTube

Toys/Collectables

Branded Clothing

They are fairly subtle as advertising goes but they are very good at at promoting the Snap-On Brand to the right kind of consumer.

 

[neophyte]

Should we pivot to the issue of Snap-On’s brand name ?
Seriously, when I first started buying tools, I didn’t come at it from an automotive background, and fidn’t know who Snsp-On was, and simply though Snap-On on was just dome overblown “infomercial brand”.
I mean look at the name.
“Snap-On”
It sounds like some gimmick tool you would see being sold on QVC or the Home channel, being advertised by Billy Mays, or Bob Villa.
I mean the name reminds me of “RoboGrip”, or the “Little Giant” “Wing” ladders, or “Metrinch” the “Inch/Metric” combined socket system.
Back when the first Snap-On socket and ratchet system was first introduced, it probably seemed like the same type of gimmick tool.

 

[Gmonkee]

Should we pivot to the issue of Snap-On’s brand name ?
Seriously, when I first started buying tools, I didn’t come at it from an automotive background, and fidn’t know who Snsp-On was, and simply though Snap-On on was just dome overblown “infomercial brand”.
I mean look at the name.
“Snap-On”
It sounds like some gimmick tool you would see being sold on QVC or the Home channel, being advertised by Billy Mays, or Bob Villa.
I mean the name reminds me of “RoboGrip”, or the “Little Giant” “Wing” ladders, or “Metrinch” the “Inch/Metric” combined socket system.
Back when the first Snap-On socket and ratchet system was first introduced, it probably seemed like the same type of gimmick tool.

Post WW1 socket wrench meant a steel socket on a wrench handle.
A few east coast makers had them.
Snap- On was a pioneer in making a removable quality socket on your wrench handle. They made non removable versions at the same time.
When others had pressed steel removable sockets that were clearly poorer.

Yes, it was a true innovation in 1920 when it was the wild west of tool technology.
Having the best could cost a week's pay.
It cost a lot more to have it.

This is my example of a 5/8" non removable dated 1925.
It's heavy and much better than kit tools.

 

[KnurledNut]

Motorsports Sponsorships

Product Placement on TV/Film/YouTube

Toys/Collectables

Branded Clothing

They are fairly subtle as advertising goes but they are very good at at promoting the Snap-On Brand to the right kind of consumer.

In the US, I have noticed that women with no tool experience generally still know of two hand tool brands.
They tend to first say Craftsman but many know of the name Snap-on.
And we all know women mean business.


Go ask your significant other and see what she says. I’m most curious what women in other countries would say.

 

[Aaron_W]

Motorsports Sponsorships

Product Placement on TV/Film/YouTube

Toys/Collectables

Branded Clothing

They are fairly subtle as advertising goes but they are very good at at promoting the Snap-On Brand to the right kind of consumer.

$1.50 hotdogs and Swedish meatballs, marketing comes in many forms, some edible.

 

[jakewolf]

I've never seen an ad for Snap on. Not sure what marketing others have mentioned. Maybe its just the discount program.

If you are curious here are a couple examples. Ryan Tuerck is one of the bigger faces of pro drifting in the USA and has had Snap On as one of his partners for a while now.

Heres a recent short he did promoting some SO product:

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=970697165621655

Additionally in a recent video he put out about his new workshop he spent the tail half showing off all of the Snap On boxes they hooked him up with. People from SO corportate are even there to help him set them up. The link is time-stamped to take you right to the toolbox portion.

 

[1Bad55Chevy]

Motorsports Sponsorships

Product Placement on TV/Film/YouTube

Toys/Collectables

Branded Clothing

They are fairly subtle as advertising goes but they are very good at at promoting the Snap-On Brand to the right kind of consumer.

Sounds like Rolls Royce, Ferrari, Aston Martin, etc, etc...

 

[Private Lugnutz]

Snap- On was a pioneer in making a removable quality socket on your wrench handle. They made non removable versions at the same time.
When others had pressed steel removable sockets that were clearly poorer.

Yes, it was a true innovation in 1920 when it was the wild west of tool technology.

Making detachable socket wrenches with heavy duty steel instead of pressed steel was certainly an innovation, but it happened much earlier and it was not Snap-on's. (Busting myth #3!) Their founders, Joseph Johnson and William Seidemann, had worked for American Grinder, selling the "Blackhawk" detachable socket sets that American Grinder had been making and selling since 1919. They literally appropriated the idea and started Snap-on a year later. There is no other way to sugar coat it. To really nerd out, Will B. Lane (in Chicago) and R.F. Sedgley (in Philly) had been making detachable machined light duty sockets for a few years, but they were hex drive, had funky ratchets, and could not industrialize it at the scale that Blackhawk and, a year later, Snap-on did.

 

[Paco Pena]

Credit! Just tell the apprentice to say no to drugs and stay off the truck.

Paco

 

[Private Lugnutz]

...look at the name.
“Snap-On”

I always thought it was derivative and a little simpering of Blackhawk, who had been using the "Q.D." (Quick Disconnect) moniker for years, to try to brand their late 30's upgraded detent and release system as "Lock-on." Really? Could they have been any more obvious?

 

[neophyte]

Making detachable socket wrenches with heavy duty steel instead of pressed steel was certainly an innovation, but it happened much earlier and it was not Snap-on's. (Busting myth #3!) Their founders, Joseph Johnson and William Seidemann, had worked for American Grinder, selling the "Blackhawk" detachable socket sets that American Grinder had been making and selling since 1919. They literally appropriated the idea and started Snap-on a year later. There is no other way to sugar coat it. To really nerd out, Will B. Lane (in Chicago) and R.F. Sedgley (in Philly) had been making detachable machined light duty sockets for a few years, but they were hex drive, had funky ratchets, and could not industrialize it at the scale that Blackhawk and, a year later, Snap-on did.

Don’t forget that the cold forged method used by most socket manufacturers nowadays to make sockets was pioneered by Allen, as a modification on their production method for making “safety” set screws, (or more particularly the internal hex drive).
This is the same Allen of “Allen” hex wrenches.

 

[liliysdad]

I’ve never seen “pedantic” defined for four solid pages, but here we are.

 

[mreisner]

Motorsports Sponsorships

Product Placement on TV/Film/YouTube

Toys/Collectables

Branded Clothing

They are fairly subtle as advertising goes but they are very good at at promoting the Snap-On Brand to the right kind of consumer.

I noticed Harbor Freight does a lot of advertising on the Gold Rush television show. I also noticed if you look at the tools used in the show it's virtually all Milwaukee cordless and Snap-on hand tools.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

Don’t forget that the cold forged method used by most socket manufacturers nowadays to make sockets was pioneered by Allen,

I have a few reasons to remember (see below), but I've never seen Snap-on make the claim that they were the first to do it. (I've only been correcting the most common 'Snap-on was first' fallacies as they've popped up, and otherwise have no intention of turning this into a broader seminar on the history of American hand tool making, for which we have an entire forum down below.)

 

[neophyte]

I have a few reasons to remember (see below), but I've never seen Snap-on make the claim that they were the first to do it. (I've only been correcting the most common 'Snap-on was first' fallacies as they've popped up, and otherwise have no intention of turning this into a broader seminar on the history of American hand tool making, for which we have an entire forum down below.)

I don’t know that they have ever claimed to be the first, at least with interchangeable sockets, but I recall others have claimed it.

 

[brandyspaw]

In 1970 I graduated high school. I then completed a 2 year Automotive Tech course at the local community college and started work at a new car dealership while building my professional tool arsenal along the way. Back then Snap-On was definitely the best. The only other tool truck in my locale was Mac. The other brands you could buy in stores, such as Craftsman, SK, Proto, New Britain, etc, were simply not in the same league. To get strong, slim wrenches that fit well, or hardened screwdriver tips, or sockets that didn't slip/break, etc required purchases from Snap-On. Most of the tools I acquired when I was a mechanic were Snap-On because of that quality.

Today, however, its a different story as there are more alternatives that can work. There's more tool truck brands plus much better quality available from many Taiwan companies than during those early Chinese days. That coupled with some of the decent quality European and Japanese brands also helps negate the hold Snap-On had back in the day.

 

[1Bad55Chevy]

Only four pages in and we gave up??

We must be getting soft around here!