Old tool brands to avoid

[Luis Arturo]

Interesting topic, I live here in Peru and normally it is believed that all tools made in USA are of excellent quality, especially the old ones, but reading this thread, I realize that it is not necessarily so.

I also have a set of screwdrivers Stanley yellow and black handle (the purchase in early 90s and were the first I had), and as they say here were not good, they were basic and economic line.

About Black and Decker power tools think the older models made in Europe and USA are of good quality, if not the level of the industry, but good.

My father is having a drill B & D model D-142 and despite the harsh treatment he has given, has always responded well. Given that experience, I have dedicated myself to get some vintage B & D tools for my use. This has allowed me to gather an orbital sander, a belt sander, jig saw and recently an electric toothbrush, all made in Europe.

I open wrong?

Cheers,

 

[gkoester]

Kmart made in Japan was good! I have a socket set of that variety from 70's or early 80's. Like Globemaster, all depends on the details.

Wards had a ton of great tools!! Like Craftsman, they would source from whoever and changed their sources many times. Some PowerMaster/Wards Master sockets were same as Indesto and very very high quality (like Craftsman V but chrome not quite as good). Some things were from New Britain and very good. Depends on the exact tool and era. - Paul

I have new open end wrenches from Penny's and Wards. SK made Penny's tools mostly. Wards did the same thing, they had tools made all over the US, great quality. Some of the best ratchet sets in this collection are made in Taiwan BENCHTOP. Japan also made decent tools in the late 70s.

 

[gkoester]

I got a boatload of B&D bits, drills, etc. New in boxes from the 70s. If you're interested [email protected]

 

[jmcf1949]

Anything that says made in india I just toss right away

Pakistan too!

 

[toolfool1994]

Anything that says made in india I just toss right away



Pakistan too!

I don’t know about pakistan but I’ve got some Wilmar made in India wrenches that are pretty good


Sent from my iPhone using Garage Journal

 

[JazzBlueRT]

HA! I still have some of those Stanley black and yellow screw drivers and still use them. Homeowner or Handyman series I think they were. I must have gotten the one good set.

Coach

I must have gotten the only other good set of those Stanley black and yellow screw drivers.

 

[JazzBlueRT]

LOL....^^^^^^What he said!^^^^^^

Also, I remember Bufalo brand running a close second to Globemaster.....
Always found them in a box on the counter at the auto parts store.

Buffalo tools were hit or miss, kinda like HF now. There was a store near Sumter SC called Rochester Imports that carried their full line. Many specialty tools were available and affordable on a military salary in the early 80's. Only one that failed on me was a 3/4 deep 1/2 drive that I foolishly put on an impact wrench.

I have a 1/2" Buffalo ratchet that is nearly indestructible as well as various pickle forks, brake tools and pullers.

That 1/2" Buffalo ratchet served as both a ratchet and hammer for nearly 10 years. It paired well with the pickle fork. Still works.

 

[jgromada]

what an unappealing topic! Some people seem to want to recall when everything was made in the USA but the reality is unless you were in the trades it was not all Proto. A lot of the stuff relatives had was a lot of **** that was around too.

 

[tym]

Modern made-in-USA Dasco is thoroughly mediocre.

 

[Downwindtracker 2]

My first socket set was a Japanese made metric Oxwall, the ridges rounded over, junk My first combinations were metric as well, better but not good, Thorsen/Action. This was the late '60s.

I used Gray Maple Leaf tools at work, rough and crude, with chrome that easily flaked, but they stood up very well. As well as the Proto that were mixed in.I bought them in the early '80s. I got tired of the rough feel of the 1/2 combination and when Blackhawk changed ownership, they dumped stock here. So I got a nicely polished Blackhawk from the clearance bin. It spread and worse yet, I was able to bend it back in a vise. I was peeved, as I had bought a SAE/metric set as well. I'm looking for full polish Grays to replace the old Maple Leafs and the pretty new Blackhawks .

 

[jgromada]

Nobody has mentioned the old Task Force stuff. When I was a kid it was the bottom of the barrel.

Even as a 10 year old kid trying to tighten the chain on my bicycle, my taste for quality exceeded Task Force's ability to deliver.

This was my favorite quote of the thread. We all seem to have this romantic notion that old US made tools were all great. The reality is lots of people might have loved to get an old Proto tool or whatever but faced with the cost issues always went cheaper.

 

[chad w]

Old, but good thread here. It is interesting how many posters are dead set on trashing foreign made tools, even though the op CLEARLY said USA MADE tools. To add to the thread- ive got some crescent screwdrivers made in the usa that are complete junk, and they smell horrid to boot. New in package, i finally took a set out to check em out and ya.. bad.

 

[bob from indiana]

The pot metal tools sold by motel room and semi trailer venders back in the late 70s early 80s were awful. Justin was one of their brands.

 

[seber]

My first set of wrenches were branded Sears & Roebuck. Every one of them opened up on the first nut they came to.
Thorsen and Husky is what I bought after that in the 60s and 70s. They were crudely forged with ugly chrome but I still have all of them and they take a beating. They are what I grab when I expect to abuse a tool. Crude but tough.

 

[jmcf1949]

Anything that says made in india I just toss right away

you can never have too many tools

Made in Pakistan is awful too.

 

[eschoendorff]

Exactly. It was around 1978. Older Buck Bros. chisels were excellent tools.

The trouble is, just saying a name doesn't always tell the whole story. A lot of brands took a nosedive in the 1970s, and a lot of brands took a nosedive when they were sold to a new owner, and a lot of brands mentioned had more than one line or quality level of tools. If all you've ever experienced is a brand's low end or homeowner level of tools, you'll give the whole name a bad rap that it may not entirely deserve.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned Black & Decker yet, or if they did, I missed it. At one time, Black & Decker made industrial/commercial quality tools that rivaled any brand anywhere. But then they diluted the brand name with homeowner-grade junk, beginning in the 1960s.

Globemaster wasn't universally bad, but most of it wasn't very good. It wasn't meant to be good; it was just meant to be cheap. Globemaster tools were made in several countries. The ones made in Spain were generally better than the ones made elsewhere.

Indestro and Durochrome (same ownership) made some excellent tools at one time. They also made some cheap ****, especially under the Indestro name.

Stanley, including Stanley Handyman, also made good tools along with the bad. Stanley power tools made from the 1930s to 1980 were among the best anywhere. Same for Stanley hand tools made from the 1860s to the 1960s.

Millers Falls was once a very respectable American brand. Now it's just a name used on nothing but import junk. They also made a very respectable line of portable power tools until 1980.

The current Rockwell-branded tools are import junk, and have absolutely nothing to do with the Rockwell brand of power tools made from 1960 to 1981 and machine tools made from 1946 to 1984. But even then, the original Rockwell diluted their own industrial brand name with homeowner-grade low-priced junk.

Fuller is another brand that has mostly been low-end and low-priced, but some of their older tools were marginally OK.

Thorsen tools made before the late-60s were very good tools.

Giller was under the same ownership as Thorsen, and a lot of Giller tools were just Thorsen re-brands.

S-K tools made during the era when they were owned by Facom were nothing compared to earlier S-K and current S-K. Facom nearly killed the brand.

Skil made some of the best industrial-grade tools before the 1990s, but they also used the name on cheap tools.

Happy Home was a dime-store brand (Woolworth's) along the same lines as Globemaster. Not universally bad, but not very good either. Anybody younger than 40 has probably never seen a Happy Home tool and probably never will.

Older Penncraft (J.C. Penney) tools were very decent, mainly prior to the 1970s.

Barcalo-Buffalo were once decent tools too, a very long time ago. There was a Buffalo brand of machine tools that was also very good.

Great Neck was never meant to be a quality brand; it was always a low-priced homeowner brand. Now it's even worse, because the name is owned by the same Chinese company that owns the Millers Falls name.

Other names to avoid, Chicago Electric, Pittsburgh....

I gotta disagree about SK. Some of my best SK tools are from the FACOM period. Durability is damn near Snap On along with decent ergonomics.

I can’t believe Vermont American hasn’t been mentioned. One of the most disappointing tools brands I ever encountered. They were sold at better retailers and had a sheen of quality in the package. Mostly made in USA too. Never impressed by any VA stuff I’ve used.

 

[yrly]

Some of Thorsen’s 2000s era Taiwan sourced stuff is actually pretty decent.

 

[Lassen Forge]

Handy Andy

HEY! My other half had a toolbox since the early 50's, "Willie Fixit". All in all, surprisingly good for a kids tool set.

. . . . . . AVOID any main electrical panel with . . . . Zinsco, Federal Pacific, etc..

Sylvania. It was an attempt for Zinsco to keep selling their "housewarmer" panels without the tarnish of the Zinsco name, capitalizing on the good name of Sylvania. We have one of each at our house, and I pull breakers once a year to inspect the bus bar and breaker mounting points. Eventually I'll replace it with QO's or something...

Those (deleted) Stanley Homeowner series drivers - the only question was whether the blade would bend or they'd cam out whatever fastener you were trying to loosen first. I had one break trying to open a paint can. The only thing they reliably did was stick in the sheetrock walls of the garage when I threw them out of frustration. I had exactly one - ONE - that did not fail - it was a HUGE flatblade that doubled as a prybar.

CURRENTLY I regretfully put that old and noble name of Craftsman on the list. 85' lb torque wrench with ratchets that strip at 40. Adjustable jaw wrenches whose jaws aren't parallel. Screwdrivers with all the potential of the aforementioned Stanleys.

 

[Mikeske]

When I was in Air Force in the mid 1970's to the mid 1980's we had low bid tools and that meant frequently broken tools. IN our toolboxes we have a mix of tools and the Bonney, Utica and SK stuff was older but great, the newer tools were Indestro, Globemaster, Thorsen and all of it was the bottom of the barrel just about every job I would be doing would also involve a broken tool from the those three.

One time in the Philippines I was out in the drop zone to retrieve a broken down all terrain forklift truck and had my tools stolen out of the service truck I was using. I was more mad then anything else as most of the tools in the service truck was either Bonney or SK. No issue filed the stolen tool box report was reissued a new box with new tools and it had the worst 3 tool companies in it. I was forever breaking tools at the most inopportune moments and when you have crawled under a M151A2 jeep to replace a rear half shaft with 3" or less clearance you can understand the frustration.

After a year and having 50% of my tools replaced I ended up going back to the states and getting assigned to San Antonio where I did not touch a tool for two years.

 

[Empty Pockets]

I don't like the old Indestro stuff but that's just an opinion. Probably nothin wrong with them, they just aren't physicaly appealing to me. The duro-chrome stuff as well

I have a bunch of Indestro Select tools that came in my dad's estate. The sockets are still good, and I have a personal fondness for the open gear ratchets. The open gear rats are particularly easy to clean if used in dirty conditions.