Westward Tools?

krehmkej · Apr 15, 2010

Just watching "How Its Made". They visited the Kenworth Factory (Canada?). Anyhow, all the hand tools I could see were marked "Westward".

I've never seen a Westward tool truck nor any tool of that brand in any industrial supply house.

Wonder who makes them? Danaher, I suppose..

mrb · Apr 15, 2010

its a grainger house brand. i have some westward screwdrivers, made in china or taiwan

Even 11 · Apr 15, 2010

I have some Westward tools, They look like asian made S-K lookalikes on the couple wrenches I have. They seem to be pretty good quality though.

-Dane

Merkava_4 · Apr 15, 2010

Thanks for the info - I'll be crossing Kenworth off my shopping list.

tatra · Apr 15, 2010

use them at work exclusivly as acklands is our main supplier.........ok for what they pay but never, never, never, never, trust their impact swivels.........have been injured by 2 , one used less than than 2 mins outta the package.........numerous instances by other guys too having them fly apart..........one thing , i never feel bad about using a 5 lb maul on them, whether i need to or not..............

sk farmer · Apr 15, 2010

Merkava_4 said:
Thanks for the info - I'll be crossing Kenworth off my shopping list.

like you were going to buy one anyway. :spit:

for the record i have an 89 t-800 and it has been a great truck. :bounce:

Hiball · Apr 15, 2010

I recently picked up a westward 1/4 ratchet that was included in some wright eBay finds. It looks just like a snap on ratchet from the exterior. I'm sure it's a import be because it has no coo stampings. I will say it has some heft to it, it's a fine tooth action and a decent chrome finish but Ive never used it personally nor heard of the brand previously.

superautobacs · Apr 15, 2010

I have a Westward catalogue and I believe all of their hand tools are imported from Taiwan/China.

The tools are exclusively made to ship West Ward

highland512 · Apr 15, 2010

I'm about 90% sure that it was filmed at the Chillicothe Ohio plant. we went there last spring and watched them build our truck. Most of the employees seemed to have a little mix of many tool brands in box's and tool bags. I saw very few hand driven tools, almost everything they used was air driven.

We have had 6 different Kenworth trucks over the past few years and not ONE single problem with the trucks, just the dealership service. They told us the trucks where hand made and I never believed it until I watched them build one! The only thing not done buy human workers was painting the exterior of the sleeper, cab, and hood. Everything was riveted, sown or bolted by real people.

matthew · Apr 15, 2010

Since Westward is distributed by Grainger, but sourced elsewhere, I would expect there's a number of different vendors they buy from. I've seen at least one socket set that sure looked like a rebadged Blue Point set.

Builder302 · Apr 15, 2010

It was filmed at the St. Therese Plant in Quebec, they make class 5, 6, and 7 Kenworth and Peterbilt trucks. PACCAR owns both companies. I worked at a Peterbilt plant in TN for about 5 years. Tools were generally purchased by the local manufacturing engineers, typically we had SO, Armstrong, Cornwell, and Wright. We had no westward tools. Air tools were IR or Atlas Copco. We used a ton of cordless impacts, both torque controlled and non. We started with Hitachi (did not last), tried SO, IR, Milwaukee, Dewalt, and found Makita to last the best in 16 hour a day, this isn't my personal tool type treatment. Bosch made the best cordless torque controlled tools.

arkangel06 · Apr 15, 2010

Westward tools have to be the cheapst sh!t I have even seen.

I would never own any of the **** they sell.

willf650 · Apr 15, 2010

I've seen a few Westward tools that guys have at work have and check them out when I'm in Grainger. I've yet to see a Westward tool that wasn't made in China. Quality is subjective to what you happen to get. I saw a guy returning a set of prybars that a couple looked like pretzels and they were new in the package and unused. I purchased a hot dog compressor and it lasted less than a month. I would never purchase any of it personally after that compressor incident.

arkangel06 · Apr 15, 2010

willf650 said:
I've seen a few Westward tools that guys have at work have and check them out when I'm in Grainger. I've yet to see a Westward tool that wasn't made in China. Quality is subjective to what you happen to get. I saw a guy returning a set of prybars that a couple looked like pretzels and they were new in the package and unused. I purchased a hot dog compressor and it lasted less than a month.

I got my hot dog compressor form the love shop.

LGMechanical · Apr 15, 2010

I have a 42" combo from westward. better than craftsman, mastercraft, etc. The hand tools are usually junk though.

matthew · Apr 15, 2010

I was in a machinery dealer that carried Westward hand tools at one point, and the guy said there's upper and lower line Westward, and that the upper line stuff was quite a bit better than the lower end stuff. I don't have any of their stuff, and don't plan to get any, but like a lot of mid-range tool brands you can probably do okay if you're selective enough...

garfunkle24 · Apr 15, 2010

arkangel06 said:
Westward tools have to be the cheapst sh!t I have even seen.

I would never own any of the **** they sell.

I agree, complete garbage IMHO. Lots of younger apprentices I know bought Westward stuff as a 'step up' from Craftsman and Mastercraft, with pricing somewhere between those brands and truck tools (surprisingly close in some cases). Most of what I have seen is on par with Mastercraft at best.

EZH · Apr 15, 2010

Builder302 said:
. . . Air tools were IR or Atlas Copco. We used a ton of cordless impacts, both torque controlled and non. We started with Hitachi (did not last), tried SO, IR, Milwaukee, Dewalt, and found Makita to last the best in 16 hour a day, this isn't my personal tool type treatment. Bosch made the best cordless torque controlled tools.

Good information. Thanks.

sk farmer said:
like you were going to buy one anyway. for the record i have an 89 t-800 and it has been a great truck.

Off topic but my favorite Kenworths are T800's. Especially those wide hood, 4 axles models. Talking about heavy haul, bring on those wind turbines.

Eric

highland512 · Apr 15, 2010

I like the 800 we have on at the moment and as far as getting around in tight spaces it's hard to beat, but you just cant beat the looks of a 900 :drool:

caper · Apr 16, 2010

garfunkle24 said:
I agree, complete garbage IMHO. Lots of younger apprentices I know bought Westward stuff as a 'step up' from Craftsman and Mastercraft, with pricing somewhere between those brands and truck tools (surprisingly close in some cases). Most of what I have seen is on par with Mastercraft at best.

I think your giving it too much credit.Mastercraft is much better in my mind.Westward is on par with Princess Auto to me with a harder to deal with warranty system.At least Canadian Tire and Princess Auto don't fight you over warranty on every item.There's a clause in our contract that requires the company to replace any of our tools we break on the job.When Grainger took over as our main supplier and the guys saw what they were pushing for tools we all told the boss we wouldn't accept Westward as a replacement for anything we broke.He's been going to our old supplier to get us Gray or on the Snap on truck when we break something.

selohssa · Apr 16, 2010

arkangel06 said:
Westward tools have to be the cheapst sh!t I have even seen.

I would never own any of the **** they sell.

I agree. I have ended up with some of this stuff in tool lots that I have purchased. It is junk.

arkangel06 said:
I got my hot dog compressor from the love shop.

nolatoolguy · Apr 16, 2010

There usally sold by Grainger. I personally think there junk. Ive only used a few of the ratchets by them thoe. I would not recomend them to a a full time wrencher.

arkangel06 · Apr 16, 2010

garfunkle24 said:
I agree, complete garbage IMHO. Lots of younger apprentices I know bought Westward stuff as a 'step up' from Craftsman and Mastercraft, with pricing somewhere between those brands and truck tools (surprisingly close in some cases). Most of what I have seen is on par with Mastercraft at best.

But mastercraft maximum blows them out of the water!

Hiball · Apr 16, 2010

This looks like the perfect venue to try and sell my WestWard 1/4 Drive Ratchet. $75 Shipped and this is a bargain... Please dont try and haggle me because im Firm. :thumbup:

Ok.. you talked me into it, Ill take $10 bucks shipped :bounce:

arkangel06 · Apr 16, 2010

Hiball said:
This looks like the perfect venue to try and sell my WestWard 1/4 Drive Ratchet. $75 Shipped and this is a bargain... Please dont try and haggle me because im Firm.

Ok.. you talked me into it, Ill take $10 bucks shipped

Ill take it for 5$ shipped.

Hiball · Apr 16, 2010

arkangel06 said:
Ill take it for 5$ shipped.

Pshh.. Ill take some crappy pics and load it up on ebay and in my title have something like this: "Awesome 1/4" ratchet Snap some sockets on it" add a disclaimer selling as is and it will be a gold mine.

superautobacs · Apr 17, 2010

Here's some socket sets that I've sold in the past:

Westward Tools?

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