Great Neck tools

[Moldyjim]

As a kid I remember my father buying, using and breaking Great Neck tools. Mostly because they were inexpensive and available at the cheap stores.

Was Great Neck ever a quality tool manufacturer, or were they always ****?
Cheap screwdrivers that would twist the tip off or come loose in the handle.
Channel lock style pliers that never stayed in the right groove. Rubber handles that slipped off the first time the were used.

Did they start with cheap junk and just stayed there, rather than started out as quality but got ruined by penny pinching corporate goons.

You know who I'm talking about.

 

[freudianfloyd]

What weird timing. I was thinking this exact thing yesterday. Seems like every Great Neck tool I have ever seen or used was produced in India and was worse that Cummins or early Harbor Freight stuff.

 

[thooks]

A couple years ago, I was putting metal siding on an outbuilding at home. I had been watching RR Buildings' Youtube videos for quite a while, learning all his tricks and tips. One of them is pre-punching the metal for screw holes. He does that with a scratch awl. It's preferable to use one with the shaft that goes all the way through the handle because you're going to be whaling on it with a hammer.

The Great Neck Scratch Awl is pretty well made and held up fantastic for what I used it for and about twice as long as what Kyle with RR Buildings says (said?) he gets out of the scratch awls he was using at the time.

When I bought them, I ordered 4 of them from Amazon. They were $5 each then, now almost $12. They are also made in USA.

Great Neck 4IN SCRATCH AWL CARDED,Multi,4,SC4C : Tools & Home Improvement

Buy Great Neck 4IN SCRATCH AWL CARDED,Multi,4,SC4C: Extra Long Drill Bits - Amazon.com ✓ FREE DELIVERY possible on eligible purchases

www.amazon.com

Not all their stuff is made in USA, I looked at their 7 pc Nut Driver set, it's chinese. I suspect they sell their name to several tool makers....

 

[BlakeTheCarGuy]

I have a fair amount of Great Neck. Some are junk the sockets I have made in Taiwan are pretty good. They are a bit taller than some though so don’t always see use. USA screwdrivers aren’t bad either. There cheaper stuff yeah it’s less than desirable.

 

[RTM]

I recently found a spinner / extension tool that seems OK so far. I think their older stuff is much better than their 80's on production.

 

[Bubba Fett]

They are all over the place in terms of quality. Some of their hand saws were great. I have a socket set that's decent, and a few other tools that range from junk to pretty good. They have several sub-brands, including Buck Bro's, Sheffield, OEM Tools, and a couple of others. OEM Tools seems to be a newer brand, and the few things I've tried have been pretty decent. Much of Great Neck's offerings are from Taiwan and China, but they do make some tools in the US.

They are also a private label manufacturer for other brands. They make the acetate handled Kobalt screwdrivers for Lowe's, and I'm 90% sure they make the Hyper Tough acetate screwdrivers for Wal-Mart.

 

[FMB4]

I've had a set of GN spade drill bits for a long time. They still work well today. Wife has a GN #2 Phil and a flat blade that have seen 'in house' use for about 2 decades. This includes a fair # of particle board 'furn' assembly (I hate particle board furn) and near numerous other 'in house' projects and repairs over the years (when I'm too lazy to walkout into the garage to gather other brand tools).

 

[qqzj]

The OEM tools 3/8 impact socket set, made in Taiwan, is much worse than the same thing gearwrench made in China. OEM Tools is of a lower tier brand in my book.

 

[Downwindtracker 2]

I have older Great Neck screwdrivers, they are decent enough that I still have them and use them. I bought a bunch of Great Neck tools at clearance, they were junk,for the truck. They were stolen, so can't say how bad they were.

I bought Buck Bro. wood chisels thinking they were more affordable than the Stanley #60. I have replacing them with fleamarket #60s.

 

[619DioFan]

I have a selection of great neck 3/4 inch drive chrome sockets. they have been used both as intended and as drivers in my press , have held up fine.

 

[M6erfan]

The OEM tools 3/8 impact socket set, made in Taiwan, is much worse than the same thing gearwrench made in China. OEM Tools is of a lower tier brand in my book.

Interesting. I really like the OEM Tools chrome sockets I have. Satin finish, usable knurling in the proper location, properly shouldered and undercut. IMO, better than GW sockets.

 

[Magnum440d100]

The OEM tools 3/8 impact socket set, made in Taiwan, is much worse than the same thing gearwrench made in China. OEM Tools is of a lower tier brand in my book.

Depends on the tool.

I picked up this OEM harmonic balancer puller off Amazon, and it performed flawlessly for the one time I’ve used it so far. If it works 4 times, I’ve made my money back (tried the 3 jaw puller before, and this tool made life EASY!).

I also use this scraper at work, when cleaning caulking snailtrails after pulling tape, or scraping low-e stickers off glass. I know it’s hard to eff up something like this, but this one has held up beautifully over a year of constant use.

As far as great neck, I used to buy their black and blue handled and black and red handled screw drivers for $1. Always had a LOT of them floating around. I’d get about a month or so use out of the Philips, which for $1, was ok with me. I know better now, but not back then.

One of my favorite ratchets was a stubby 3/8-1/4” combo. I used it for EVERYTHING! Not sure where it ended up. Stolen most likely. It’s been almost 20 years at this point.

 

[four.cycle]

Moldyjim -
One of my three brothers-in-law was formerly the North American Sales Manager for Great Neck Tool. He handled Canada, the U.S., and Mexico.
As noted above, "quality" of Great Neck products varied, depending upon where and from who it was being outsourced. Great Neck did produce an enormous amount of their product line in-house, as well as manufacturing product for private-label accounts. (Somebody here just yesterday suggested that the "G" code on a Powr-Kraft nutdriver may have been the production code for Great Neck - https://www.garagejournal.com/forum/threads/post-up-your-powr-kraft-tools.387224/page-9#post-9286504 - it has yet to be confirmed, but it's entirely plausible.)
When aforementioned brother-in-law left Great Neck, he ended up with a good quantity of new tools - salesmens' samples - many of which he passed on to me. Thus far I haven't had any issues with any of them, other than a very large "TORX" bit we used to remove the bed bolts from my truck. I don't attribute that to inferior quality of the tool, as we managed to snap three more off in the process of removing the other bed bolts.) Other than that, all the rest of the stuff he gave me works just dandy.

Great Neck / Great Neck Saw Manufacturers Inc., Mineola, NY / manufacturing facility in Mineola, NY was producing saw blades. manufacturing facility in Worcester, MA. was producing screwdrivers. location of third US manufacturing facility unknown.

 

[Moldyjim]

This is very interesting, I didn't realize GN hade other brands too or that they were so big..
I have some old Buck Brothers chisels and wood carving tools that are very nicely made, some Indestructo tools that also are good.
I just remember the Great neck tools my father bought at Walgreens etc when we were struggling to get by. They were pretty lame even then.

I guess it's like anything else, you have the Cadillac line on one end and the Chevy Vega manufacturing at the other end of the spectrum.

I have more or less given up on buying new screwdrivers, they don't hold up, either they break, or the tips twist and cam out.
All the old screwdrivers I have you can pretty much see how good the heat treating is by how the end is burnished from use.
The edges might be a little rounded, the handles are worn and smoothed by hundreds hours of being handled and bumping around in tool boxes.

But they will last ten times longer than new name brand sets. There are some good ones out there still, I have a set of new Lenox that are doing well. I wonder about the soft rubber co-molded onto the handles though. I've had some tools with that kind of handle where the rubber get old and sticky after a while. The old nitrocellulose and wooden handles will last a long long time.

 

[four.cycle]

wonder if that guy down in Oklahoma City has any decent screwdrivers? might check there:

Under New Management (Meridian Tool, Oklahoma City) 10/26/21

(* I am taking the liberty of posting in this forum as well in order it get the maximum possible exposure. *) Some of you may recall a couple members here mentioning "Meridian Tool", a tool liquidator in Oklahoma City, several years ago. Meridian Tool had a lot of really nice stuff, but they...

www.garagejournal.com

that's strictly "stab in the dark with my eyes closed" stuff.... NO idea what he might have in that genre.

 

[lardy1]

I have two sets of low profile OEM sockets. Rarely use them because they are 12 point but they'll turn a screw. Nothing to write home about. I wish they had hex on the drive end like the Vim low profiles have.

 

[four.cycle]

Great Neck 203K 3-pc chisel set (made in Japan)

Great Neck HK18 18-pc SAE hex key wrench set (made in U.S.A.)

 

[joshmodelskidoo]

My experience with great neck is there **** but it’s been years since i used anything great neck brand. I see they had some usa made stuff so that’s probably pretty good. I have used some oem brand stuff thats not to bad and im sure they probably make Orilleys and napas rental tools and i like those

 

[four.cycle]

"My experience..."

see post #13

O'Reilly's line of "Performance" tools (formerly known as "Wilmar") is produced in Taiwan (ROC) or China (PRC).

 

[dnschmidt]

They are a far bigger player than you realize. The Great Neck brand has basically been abandoned OEM Tools is now their major label. I met a guy from Great Neck at the AAPEX show in Vegas a couple of years ago. Seemed like a player.

 

[geartow]

I have a bunch of wrenches that are greatneck when they were autozone house brand early 2000s. they have held up fairly well . The ones I have would compare to texton of today.

 

[Subutai]

According to Wikipedia they are the largest privately owned tool manufacturer in the USA.

Their giraffe logo is cool, reminds me of the Lobtex lobster logo.

 

[four.cycle]

Great Neck TX15 TX25 TX30 Torx Screwdrivers (ca. 1990s)

 

[lolaetype]

I bought a set of 5 Great Neck offset box end wrenches at the Hershey Swap Meet this year. Nice slick chrome finish, no apparent slop in how they fit over bolt heads they feel fairly substantial, don't look cheap. I've not really used them yet, but the set of 5 was only $10, so I figured, "why not".

 

[lardy1]

I've been pondering this. I like the knurling.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BFT7DBCT/?tag=atomicindus08-20

 

[lolaetype]

I've been pondering this. I like the knurling.

Interesting. I could have used that when I replaced the upper control arms on the Mazda 6 a couple of weeks ago.

 

[lardy1]

There are cheaper versions of the concept out there. The lower priced ones appear to be stamped rather than forged. Capri also offers a forged on but I like the knurling on the OEM.

 

[four.cycle]

^ that unit looks as though it might be able to withstand a bit of arm.

 

[milkovich]

see post #13

O'Reilly's line of "Performance" tools (formerly known as "Wilmar") is produced in Taiwan (ROC) or China (PRC).

It's still Wilmar, but the hand tools are "Performance Tool" ... anything they source from Taiwan has been surprisingly good in my opinion. Anything they source from China is hit or miss, the China impact socket sets are a great. I like the looser tolerances compared to Sunex which feel too tight.

 

[four.cycle]

^
Wilmar / Wilmar LLC, 20413 59th Place Ss. #160, Kent, WA 98032 / est. 1971 / importers of "Performance Tool" brand of hand tools /

Willy Bolando and I started full-time about the same time. He started out peddling 1-1/2" ton bottle jacks and went from there. Operation is still up in Kent.

(He didn't sell jacks very long. "Jet Equipment" moved in here down on Jefferson Street and ate his lunch on the jacks - we could RETAIL a 1-1/2" ton jack for $8.88 and more than double our money, and throw all the "warranties" in the dumpster and not lose any sleep over them.)

Between what we were bringing in in the early 1970's (which was almost ALL Taiwan or Hong Kong made originally) the line went from bottom-of-the-barrel-as-cheap-as-you-can-get to the "Performance" line which was something of a step-up at first, and gradually became what you see in the O'Reilly stores today - a mix of R.O.C. and P.R.C. product, the former being "the good stuff".

 

[LXCam]

I bought this set of DBE 18yrs ago and they turned out to be a top quality set. Definitely not my typical experience with their tools though

 

[NoahG]

A pair of NOS Great Neck pieces I picked up yesterday.

 

[d42jeep]

I picked up this old screwdriver with the shank extending through the handle and was very surprised to see it marked Great Neck Saw Mfg. -Don

 

[Hakeem]

I always get a chuckle out of the name, as “neck” is a slang term for a *** act.

 

[Chipm]

I have a bunch of OEM Tools pullers and stuff like that. They sell replacement parts, which is a big plus when you aren't paying attention and put a wheel bearing pusher on backwards.

I also have a 1/2 inch ratchet ca. 2001 or so that is a pretty fair copy of an S936. I haven't used it much, but in 25 years I don't remember it giving me trouble.

 

[tiredoldironworker]

All of my Great Neck tools have been great, especially the complete "pro" 1/4 drive set with complete shallows and deeps.