Tekton tin snips

[lardy1]

New to their lineup. I don't need any but at the price point I would probably try them if I did,

Aviation Snips | TEKTON

Available in straight, left, or right. The tin/sheet metal snips have serrated blades, spring-loaded handles, and three direction indicators.

www.tekton.com

 

[four.cycle]

Manufactured in Taiwan with a $40 price point - they're shoveling sand against the tide going up against Midwest Snips at comparable price points.

 

[willf650]

Manufactured in Taiwan with a $40 price point - they're shoveling sand against the tide going up against Midwest Snips at comparable price points.

Was my thought's too but was going to refrain from saying anything.

I can think of two American companies that would have probably produced private labeled snips for them.

They have done so in the past

 

[four.cycle]

Oh.. you mean the company that makes them for everyone else?
That's Midwest Snips.

 

[liliysdad]

Manufactured in Taiwan with a $40 price point - they're shoveling sand against the tide going up against Midwest Snips at comparable price points.

Was my thought's too but was going to refrain from saying anything.

I can think of two American companies that would have probably produce private labeled snips for them.

They have done so in the past

There’s that whole “Tekton strives to increase their American made content” showing up again….

 

[d.mcfarland]

There’s that whole “Tekton strives to increase their American made content” showing up again….

They stopped that so fast and just went to rebranding anything they could.

I'd only choose Tekton for anything a person would abuse and just use the warranty for replacement. It's internet Harbor Freight with a higher price to justify the convenience.

 

[liliysdad]

They stopped that so fast and just went to rebranding anything they could.

I'd only choose Tekton for anything a person would abuse and just use the warranty for replacement. It's internet Harbor Freight with a higher price to justify the convenience.

Sure was easy when it was easy….

 

[mreisner]

Tekton and Midwest both are within an hour of each other in Michigan also.

 

[liliysdad]

Tekton and Midwest both are within an hour of each other in Michigan also.

I’ll never not post this when the timing js right…

I’m John Amash, the CEO of Tekton, and I wanted to share exciting developments about our US manufacturing efforts.

More and more of our tools are now made in the US, through a combination of our in-house manufacturing operations and partnerships with some of the best contract manufacturers in the country.

The percentage of USA-made products in Tekton’s lineup is now over 20 percent, including angle wrenches, crowfoot wrenches, dead blow hammers, groove joint pliers, hard-handle screwdrivers, high-torque screwdrivers and nut drivers, pick and hook sets, and several tool storage products. Our next USA-made category will be flare nut crowfoot wrenches.

Our in-house manufacturing capabilities include CNC machining, broaching, laser engraving, vibratory polishing, and pressing. Although we maintain strict control over the materials, processes, and specifications everywhere we make our tools, we believe there’s no substitute for working in our own plant with our own equipment. So we’re working hard to expand our in-house manufacturing capacity.

 

[Firebrick43]

They stopped that so fast and just went to rebranding anything they could.

I'd only choose Tekton for anything a person would abuse and just use the warranty for replacement. It's internet Harbor Freight with a higher price to justify the convenience.

They were a tool rebranding reseller from the beginning. They didn't make anything at first.

They ponied up the money and started making their own tools, and continue to make their own tools. They are adding to their line up as well? I don't get where you get that they stopped producing tools in their Michigan factory? What other hand tool manufacture is doing more in the states when they can instead of say Ideal that has sold SK, closed western forge and possibly pratt read now?

I don't even get the whole HF thing. They are a step up from pittsburg line at HF and yes are more money than them. Chinese HF vs Taiwanese. HF Ikon is the comparable tools, they are Taiwanese as well and very similar price.

 

[sk farmer]

hey i will jump on the wagon. one more reason not to like tekton and it remains as one of only a couple brands on my do not buy list.

 

[sk farmer]

They were a tool rebranding reseller from the beginning. They didn't make anything at first.

They ponied up the money and started making their own tools, and continue to make their own tools. They are adding to their line up as well? I don't get where you get that they stopped producing tools in their Michigan factory? What other hand tool manufacture is doing more in the states when they can instead of say Ideal that has sold SK, closed western forge and possibly pratt read now?

I don't even get the whole HF thing. They are a step up from pittsburg line at HF and yes are more money than them. Chinese HF vs Taiwanese. HF Ikon is the comparable tools, they are Taiwanese as well and very similar price.

what tekton factory in michigan? please tell me and everyone else where it iis.

i will go out on a limb and say tekton does not own one iota of mfg. capacity in michigan or anywhere else. i will gladly retract my statement if proven otherwise.

 

[Firebrick43]

what tekton factory in michigan? please tell me and everyone else where it iis.

i will go out on a limb and say tekton does not own one iota of mfg. capacity in michigan or anywhere else. i will gladly retract my statement if proven otherwise.

Tekton Manufacting Center
424 36th St SE, Grand Rapids, MI 49548

Google Maps

Find local businesses, view maps and get driving directions in Google Maps.

maps.app.goo.gl

Service wrenches,
Angle head/hydraulic line wrenches
crowfeet

I "think" the hard handle small prybars are made there as well.

 

[drokihazan]

I’ll never not post this when the timing js right…

it's so funny knowing how quickly after this post they cancelled their US made screwdrivers and went to 100% imported Witte ones and got rid of literally Tekton's best product, their hard handles.
I really want to like Tekton, but they make one bad decision after another. Their customer service is amazing. The service wrenches are amazing. The CEO might be a *****.

 

[sk farmer]

if you look up that address it looks like a rather small warehouse located between a used car dealership and a cleaning service. it really doesn't prove anything. i didn't fully watch the videos but i doubt there is anything in them to to prove anything is made at that location the building is just a fraction of the size of their office and warehouse that is just around the corner and behind it.

tekton has never been open to where their stuff was made. i flat out asked a rep a few years ago where any of their stuff was made and they flat out refused to say.

 

[RTM]

if you look up that address it looks like a rather small warehouse located between a used car dealership and a cleaning service. it really doesn't prove anything. i didn't fully watch the videos but i doubt there is anything in them to to prove anything is made at that location the building is just a fraction of the size of their office and warehouse that is just around the corner and behind it.

tekton has never been open to where their stuff was made. i flat out asked a rep a few years ago where any of their stuff was made and they flat out refused to say.

Maybe an inspection/ assembly facility, no stacks on the roof of any visible size, no massive dumpsters out back.

 

[Firebrick43]

if you look up that address it looks like a rather small warehouse located between a used car dealership and a cleaning service. it really doesn't prove anything. i didn't fully watch the videos but i doubt there is anything in them to to prove anything is made at that location

LOL. Love it, you cant be bothered to watch The first video at the end literally says that "we make them here in Grand Rapids Michigan"

They videos show them laser cutting and machining in a rather small building. CNC has made lower volume products cheaper to produce, mainly in needing a fraction of space and specialized machinery that traditional forging and broaching does.

tekton has never been open to where their stuff was made. i flat out asked a rep a few years ago where any of their stuff was made and they flat out refused to say.

Prove to me you actually had this conversation? What was the reps name? /s

Have you dealt with a lot of reps. Many times they have been trained very specifically about the products capabilities, and are chosen more for their sales experience, pretty face, and soothing voice. Many have absolutely no clue how the sausage is made nor do they want to know. The company's I worked for all told the reps to not make any thing up that they didn't absolutely know the correct answer to.

Maybe an inspection/ assembly facility, no stacks on the roof of any visible size, no massive dumpsters out back.

Why would there be stacks on the roof of a CNC machine shop? Or dumpsters out back? The two machine shops I worked in, one over 40 acres under roof never put a chip outside in a dumpster or scrap either.

 

[sk farmer]

hey whatever you say. you can have your opinion and i will have mine.

so you watched the videos. does it give the location of the mfg facility in the video or any other clue as to location?

the guys name. don't recall but it was in a thread or conversation on this site. nas far as i can tell nobody from tekton is public on this site anymore. somebody with time and patience could find it i am sure.

have i dealt with reps? depends i guess.

i knew vince kane from montezuma mfg. he gave me a prototype crossover toolbox that i still have.

i also had a contact with irwin vice grip. he had me demoing their stuff and gave me a variety of locking pliers in a variety of sizes and shapes. we were in contact for a year so as to what i liked and disliked about them vs the old us made models. last i heard he had moved to a different division and i lost touch with him.

i also was a tester for triangle tool company when they tried to break into the us market a few years back. they failed, i didn't like the tools and sold them to a member here in the classified.

i also was pre buy on the hextension ratchet/socket extension and had some converstion and feed back with the guys who did that. i still have and like the extensions which i actually like quite a bit. sadly their company is gone

i was in pretty close contact with joel and the folks at chapman for a while.

all of those contacts could be backed up if you snooped around here long enough so yea i would say i have dealt with mfg reps. might even be some i am forgetting.

all of them straight up decent folks. the guy from tekton, not so much but as they say your mileage may vary.

outside the tool world? i live in southeast corner of north dakota. i can damn near throw a rock and hit the cnh tractor and loader plant in in fargo, the bobcat factory in gwinner, the vaderstad/wil-rich plant in wahpeton, the trailking plant in west fargo and about a dozen other smaller places. i have been in all of them and know people in all of them from workers to upper level management. my buddy who is a rep for several different industrial lines calls on all of them selling anything from wago connectors to mac valves, phd cylinders and a host of other pneumatic and motion control items.

so.....to answer another question, yes i know how the sausage is made. hell i even make real home made sausage from the killing to the grinding stuffing and smoking so i know how that is made as well.

 

[KnurledNut]

New to their lineup. I don't need any but at the price point I would probably try them if I did,

Aviation Snips | TEKTON

Available in straight, left, or right. The tin/sheet metal snips have serrated blades, spring-loaded handles, and three direction indicators.

www.tekton.com

Thanks for sharing. As long as Malco is making snips, that will be my personal choice. Everything else I have tried has been inferior to them.
If Tekton is reading, you really need to add offsets. They are preferred by a lot of pros.

 

[ChevyEFI]

it's so funny knowing how quickly after this post they cancelled their US made screwdrivers and went to 100% imported Witte ones and got rid of literally Tekton's best product, their hard handles.
I really want to like Tekton, but they make one bad decision after another. Their customer service is amazing. The service wrenches are amazing. The CEO might be a *****.

What Tekton does, that's likeable, is they follow feedback, come up with product line, and let the product sink or swim based on sales.

SO milked hard handles for a looooong time. Others had them. CAT, Williams, others. If you wanted a set, you could buy them. I would have thought the market for them was deadened. And screwdrivers probably are a low margin item anyway

Did Tekton do research on the volume those pieces / sets were doing before they went with the line? Or is having new just good practice to keep up on marketing? Lots of ways to see this.

But in the end, did you like them well enough to buy a full set?

 

[Firebrick43]

hey whatever you say. you can have your opinion and i will have mine.

I am not arguing opinion. I am pointing out lies/untruths that have been stated.

Its very obvious from past threads and even this one that @liliysdad despises tekton because the contract for who was making their USA hard handles ended and now witte makes them. I really don't get the level of hatred he has, but I get it. He liked them and things then changed. He feels the rug was pulled out from under him. I was displeased when snap on stopped making the their 4 sided hard handles and switched to the comfort grip 3 side screwdrivers. Maybe I have just been let down by companies switching styles (snap on, craftsman) to just plain selling out to the Chinese (sk) that for whatever reason the switched one product line to Germany I am not going to get my ******* in a bunch. But if he wants to, I don't care. He said his opinion and didn't have to lie about it.

I in the same sense I could care less if you like them or not. But people don't have to lie or manipulate the truth to show their disdain.

so you watched the videos. does it give the location of the mfg facility in the video or any other clue as to location?

Yes, He says Grand Rapids Michigan. There are two Tekton facilities in that relatively small city, one stating on its their manufacturing center? Its even on the sign outside.

i will go out on a limb and say tekton does not own one iota of mfg. capacity in michigan or anywhere else. i will gladly retract my statement if proven otherwise.

I guess what is your definition of "one iota" and "proven otherwise"

Videos, addresses, pictures of the front of the buildings from thirds parties don't seem to be enough?

Does it have to be a sworn statement from the governor? or is that not enough?

 

[sk farmer]

i don't believe anything that tekton or mr. amash say. i truly beleive they are subbed out like the prybars, punches, pliers etc that are made by other known mfgs.

i am also wondering about what you say, grand rapids a relatively small city? i don't know if 1.18 million people, the second largest metro area in michigan and the 49th largest metro area in the usa counts as a relatively small city. coming from a "state" of just over 800,000 i guess i don't know what small cities are.

apparently you like tekton. buy as much as you like. i don't and won't

 

[RTM]

Why would there be stacks on the roof of a CNC machine shop? Or dumpsters out back? The two machine shops I worked in, one over 40 acres under roof never put a chip outside in a dumpster or scrap bin

Was implying a clean facility, as I started w assembly or inspection, which would fit in a smaller facility, vs a forging facility. And no big dumpsters, as I had the pain to witness while driving thru Van Wert Ohio, and took a slight side trip to see the Kennedy facility, and watching them dump a cart full of roller box sized pieces of metal in the dumpster.

Not every manufacturing facility is huge, with 100s of employees, packed parking lots, noise, dusty and dirty emissions.

 

[Firebrick43]

I truly beleive they are subbed out like the prybars, punches, pliers etc that are made by other known mfgs.

Yes they are, they have stated exactly that. I have never heard them deny that other companies made almost all those products you just listed. I don't know why you keep moving the target?

But they still make the angle head wrenches, crows feet, and service wrenches, which is more than "one iota"

i am also wondering about what you say, grand rapids a relatively small city? i don't know if 1.18 million people, the second largest metro area in michigan and the 49th largest metro area in the usa counts as a relatively small city. coming from a "state" of just over 800,000 i guess i don't know what small cities are.

Spent 5 years in the Marine Corps, when not deployed to some **** hole I was stationed in Camp Pendleton, between San Diego and all of the LA basin. And I have been on the east coast in those metropolis, where other than a sign there is no demarcation or country side to see where a city begins and ends like Grand Rapids does. Go thru there yearly and its an easy 20 or 30 min drive across from north to south.

 

[liliysdad]

Its very obvious from past threads and even this one that @liliysdad despises tekton because the contract for who was making their USA hard handles ended and now witte makes them. I really don't get the level of hatred he has, but I get it. He liked them and things then changed. He feels the rug was pulled out from under him.

A bit dramatic…but just a bit.

As much as I hate change, my dislike for the company has little to do with the actual drivers themselves.

My larger issue is that they used these drivers as their flagship in their “We love making tools in the USA” campaign nonsense. As soon as they squeezed what they could from that, they did the exact opposite…..and what they always done.

 

[dnschmidt]

In snips it's either Midwest or Malco. All else isn't worth mentioning

 

[Firebrick43]

My larger issue is that they used these drivers as their flagship in their “We love making tools in the USA” campaign nonsense.

I don’t know what transpired between Wilde and tekton to end that relationship on the hard handle screwdrivers and larger prybars.

What ever the reason with Ideal closing western forge, the other large quality American contract screwdriver maker, and Pratt reed a large step down in quality, what were they supposed to do? And they brought out USA made crowfeet, flared crowfeet, and their very innovative service wrenches actually made in house at the same time.

As soon as they squeezed what they could from that, they did the exact opposite…..and what they always done.

I wasn’t aware that they had discontinued other lines of USA made tools in the past? Which ones were that?

Or is that part just hyperbole?

 

[Basskiller]

I like turtles…….

 

[lardy1]

My father was a sheet metal guy at Ternstedt which later was bought by GM and the plant became part of Fisher Body. Not that it matters other than to say I've been around sheet metal tools all my life including my own carrer as a carpenter for over 30 years. Dad's choice was Wiss so I stayed that course for years with my own acquisitions. Wiss was outsourced to Asia and the decline in quality was pretty disappointing to me. I needed a new pair a couple years ago so I bought the Midwest mostly due to the fact that they are made here at home and I try to support that. In the end, I'm not at all impressed with them. They may be top quality by today's standard. I don't know. But I do know they don't compare to a new set of the old Wiss I was familiar with. I haven't and probably won't buy the Tekton because I'm almost 73 years old and don't use them much anymore so the Midwest pair will likely never need replaced.

Sorry this turned into a Tekton hate thread. Seems it the same cast of characters we can depend on to chime in on every Tekton thread so I guess it's the norm for GJ. Nobody endorsed these snips. Nobody has praised them. The only intent of this thread was informational. To announce another entry into the Tekton Tools lineup. If that bothers someone I don't know what to tell you other than I'm sorry for your misery that Tekton exists and actually appeals to some people. That's gotta be hard.

 

[four.cycle]

If Tekton is reading, you really need to add offsets. They are preferred by a lot of pros.

They are.
And you are correct - I would agree with you regarding the offsets. That said, if I were Tekton, I wouldn't be putting any of my eggs in the "aviation snips" basket - I'd focus my efforts and energy on one of their stronger suits.

Sorry this turned into a Tekton hate thread. Seems it the same cast of characters we can depend on to chime in on every Tekton thread so I guess it's the norm for GJ. Nobody endorsed these snips. Nobody has praised them. The only intent of this thread was informational. To announce another entry into the Tekton Tools lineup. If that bothers someone I don't know what to tell you other than I'm sorry for your misery that Tekton exists and actually appeals to some people. That's gotta be hard.

Some are compelled to bash when given the opportunity to bash.
I think that's to be expected around here. It's certainly not exclusive to Tekton.
I view it the same as those I had to listen to 40 years ago who went on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on about Carter Carburetors or Champion Spark Plugs. YadaYadaYada.

Irrespective of all of that, what's overlooked here is that Tekton, unlike almost every other "legacy" American manufacturer of hand tools, at least makes a continual, on-going effort to introduce new products in their line up, and continually tries to innovate with new items previously not offered by any other manufacturers.

So.... meh.
My buddy parked his fancy-schmantzy "Snap-on" 1/4" kit and his go-to now is the Tekton blow-mold set-up I gave him a couple years back.
You do the math.

 

[mikey03]

it's so funny knowing how quickly after this post they cancelled their US made screwdrivers and went to 100% imported Witte ones and got rid of literally Tekton's best product, their hard handles.
I really want to like Tekton, but they make one bad decision after another. Their customer service is amazing. The service wrenches are amazing. The CEO might be a *****.

I love tekton but yea the hard handles US screwdrivers were there best product for sure. And it makes me real sad they got rid of them for a inferior product