**** Tools

[cherrybomb]

Save your crappy tools for a neighbor who always wants to borrow them,unless his cute wife returns them,then let him borrow.

 

[thatguysb]

i still have a single 3/8 ratchet that i got in a set of those cheap tool sets. Had since i was 10 years old, man thats a tough ratchet. Still works today, works perfectly. Dont use it at all in fear of it damaging it but carry it around in my portable tool kit everyday.

 

[thatpreludeguy]

I do remember the **** socket sets that you'd get at KMart or the gas station. Typically they'd have roundhead ratchets, thin metal cases with a blowmold insert, and the little gold oval Made in Taiwan sticker somewhere on them. Back then Taiwan was the bottom of the barrel. They wouldn't last long; it was easy to torque them to pieces. As I recall, they looked like this:

A family friend gave me that exact set in the early 80's to work on my bicycle with. I finally got a tool chest and found a bunch of the sockets that were mixed in, they all look like they're cast aluminum,

 

[cherrybomb]

I don't know if I should think of this thread as funny or sad.I know people are always looking for a deal,but you have to be realistic on price vs.quality and function.Read Empty Pockets thread on his Dad preaching quality.IMOO he nailed it.Wright,Proto,SK or Williams USA,a lifetime of no non sense wrenching.If you are a professional tech,of course SO is there choice.

 

[jdlong]

Back in the 60's and 70's, a lot of those overseas tool subcontractors were start up guys who could only afford early 1900's forging, casting and machining technology. A lot of their machinery was pre WWII US machinery they bought used and rebuilt. But the tools sold and over the decades, a growing volume of tool exports afforded them more modern tool making technology that makes many, not all of today's "cheap" tools far better than they were back in the day. And I do not mean to say as good as the SK and SnapOn variety.

 

[MarineScott]

I bought an impact screwdriver you hit with a hammer in 1976 for $6, and I still use it till this day as a professional mechanic

 

[Kev442]

From 16 to 20 all I bought was those **** sets. All I could afford. I got a little lucky with the last one, made in Japan and six point sockets. That set lasted a little while.

 

[Sugarfryz]

Ever see the tools at a Dollar Tree? Wowzers. The adjustable wrench was made in India. Total pot metal and the finishing was so bad that you'd slice your hands open on them.

Other day at K-Mart, I perused the tool section. It's funny how they have those little plastic bags of cheap no name wrenches hanging there. I think they're $10 or so. It's for people who don't want to pay a whopping $20 for the Craftsman set of wrenches. But that $10 difference may be a big deal to the poor souls living paycheck to paycheck.

Ollie's Bargain Store has some pretty decent tools. They have some Great Neck screwdrivers (Made in USA I think) for 50 cents each or they were 3 for a buck, can't remember. But they had the acetate handles and were blue/clear and red/clear.

I honestly can't remember the last time I saw a Kmart. The last sears near me just closed.

 

[Duct Tape Man]

Nationalism and USA jobs support aside, I think a lot of the reluctance of many of us to use foreign tools comes from experience with sets like those above. We tried them because they were cheap, they failed, we invested in better stuff, it worked, so we don't buy cheap imports now.

THIS.

My first tools I bought were ****. I thought I could save a few bucks and I bought the cheapest stuff I could find because I didn't have a lot of money, surely I had no credit, so I got what I could afford. The Chinese made junk didn't last more than a few uses before I learned my lesson - YOU BUY QUALITY ONLY ONCE.

 

[Sam'sAutoParts]

I see partial sets like that at yard and estate sales all the time. I rarely ever see the original ratchet. Usually it was replaced by a Craftman or SK.

Exactly, I always open them up take a look. I almost always find something good. Often I can get the whole set cheap and keep the good stuff and toss the rest.

 

[MushCreek]

If you go back far enough, Japanese was synonymous with junk. They made the crappiest stuff on the planet. They wisely figured out that Americans wanted better quality, and stepped up their game until some of their stuff become some of the best available. Japanese cars have long been associated with quality- a far cry from the old Subaru 360.

China, in particular seems to be on this same path. They have a long way to go, but you can get some pretty decent tools dirt cheap these days.

 

[MushCreek]

Ironically, it was Americans that taught Japan the concept of statistical quality control and total quality control. Then, they beat us at our own game.

 

[545_days]

I got a gas station hammer purchased with green stamps or some similar get coupons with every purchase and redeem them for stuff deal back when I was a kid. The hammer head edges spalled off when driving nails, and the claws both broke off when I tried to pull a nail with them.

OTOH I bought a set of four cheap screwdrivers with wood handles about the same time. They have no markings other than "Vanadium Steel" on the shafts. Surprisingly, those have been absolutely bulletproof, and I still use them today.

 

[Junkdrawer Dog]

Delete

 

[chris142]

Late 70's my uncle sent me a 1/2 drive sae socket set for Christmas. Made in taiwan.I swear the sockets were made out of cheese. I found that the 15/32 would work for the 12mm bolt heads on my dirt bike though.

The round head ratchet soldiered on for several years bent handle and all.

Today's Chinese tools are much better quality than that set was and Taiwan tools are generally very good.

OT: I did but a Taiwan made fuel filter pretty recently for my truck and it was built incorrectly and not usable so they still need to catch up on some things.

 

[four.cycle]

My point here is that the quality from a place like Harbor Freight is light years ahead of this set from Whitney.

I've never even seen a J.C. Whitney catalog, let alone owned any of their products, so I can't speak to the quality of your socket set.

If it was on a par level of quality as some of the garbage we were peddling in the 70's and early 80's, those sockets were made out of sawdust and glue, not cheese. Cheese would have held up better.

We originally started with Hollywood Accessories, as they were a line we were already carrying.
Then a guy named Bill Bolando started a company he called "Wilmar" up in Kent, and we started buying from them.
We could sell the Wilmar set for $8.88 retail and double our money in the stores, AND make 20% at the warehouse. Pure gravy.
Then one of the sales reps who sold us a ton of stuff, Cal Steiner, came in one day with a 40-piece 1/4" and 3/8" drive socket set - available in metric or standard - laid in from Los Angeles at $1.63 each (including shipping), AND we got 2% 10th proximo terms AND we finagled some ad money out of him on a couple other lines. Catch was: we had to buy them by the gross.
We brought them in. Blew them out on an ad for $3.99 LIFETIME GUARANTEE. We just told the people in the stores "Doesn't MATTER - just hand 'em a new one." We still made money on them.
Years later, I brought a huge box of "defective" sets downstairs out of the warehouse, salvaged some of the decent pieces out and gave them to a buddy who needed tools, and tossed the rest in the dumpster.

"BUFFALO" brand. Black label with Orange graphics - horrid looking graphics on the label.

 

[bobg03]

we've got a complete set of that - without the sleeve - that's my wife's toolkit that she used around the house before she met my tool collection. (these days she's got a bag or two filled with kobalt mostly)

Were not these tools shown here the predecessors of Kobalt?

 

[jd_1138]

Ugh sometimes in estate sale auction lot wins, I come across some of those old crappy quality "tools". I toss 'em in the garbage. Let them return to the Earth.

Yeah HF stuff is way way better. And their storage is a bargain.

 

[chris142]

I've never even seen a J.C. Whitney catalog,

Guess I'm showing my age! They used to sell a package with round pellets in it. You removed your spark plugs and dropped the pellets down the hole. Supposed to rebuild worn rings.

 

[zendriver]

Regarding Japan let’s not rewrite history.

They made some of the finest mass produce products in the world until the end of World War II. Unfortunately, it was most all military related.

Mitsubishi zero? The allies had to literally go back to the drawing board to counter it.

Check out videos on the Japanese combat boot, it’s literally a mass produce leather work of art

All of the post war “occupied, Japan” stuff, painted figurines, cheap screwdrivers in chintzy tin toys was about all they could produce because their industries were completely destroyed and all rebuilding efforts controlled by the allies

When they got the greenlight, Sony put out the first inexpensive portable transistor radio that well built and sold like crazy

They recovered back to the way, Japan always Built stuff

 

[Rockable]

The first thing I thought of was the Globemaster table at my local NAPA store. (Already mentioned.) Those tools were mostly ****, for sure.

 

[four.cycle]

Guess I'm showing my age! They used to sell a package with round pellets in it. You removed your spark plugs and dropped the pellets down the hole. Supposed to rebuild worn rings.

^ part number EOK Yale.
Yale Engineering Company, 4025 N. Ravenswood Ave., Chicago, IL 60613

We sold thousands of them. Sales rep was one Mr. Robert E. Lee (of Lee & Lee, of course.)
We bought a lot of stuff from Bob. L&S Bearings, Alloy U-Joints, Master fuel pumps.... Yale was one of his "little" lines.
The pellets are compressed graphite. The goo in the can was about 7 times stickier and thicker than "STP Oil Treatment".
Pull the plugs, drop three or four of those graphite pellets into the combustion chamber, pour that monkey milk into the crankcase, and voila! Cha-Ching! Another ten bucks in the cash register as we laugh as you pull out of the parking lot.

Remember what P.T. Barnum said?
Here's a guy on the web claiming this stuff actually works.
I kid you not.

Are you done laughing yet?
We had a LOT of customers who came back and bought another one for their other oil-burner! (I kid you not.)

Yale also made this "Muffler Putty" stuff:

I don't know what was in it... ground up asbestos maybe, or pieces of Jimmy Hoffa... no clue.
It came in a tube about the size of a large tube of toothpaste. Battleship gray. Lumpy, sticky gray stuff.
When I sold a customer a tube of it, I'd also sell them a couple gigantic stainless steel hose clamps, and instruct them to slice open an empty beer can , flatten it out, put the goop all over one side, and then affix that "patch" over the hole and secure it with the hose clamps. Some guys went cheap and just used old coat-hanger wire - worked just as good. Was actually a good product if your goal was to "glue" your exhaust system back together long enough to sell the car.

YMMV

 

[Pinemarten]

I had to check...............there are several J C Whitney catalogs on Ebay for around $5. It might be worth buying one just to remember how you were at the mercy of the local auto parts store, because you sure didn't want to order from J C Whitney!

 

[AEAdam]

I just worry that our love affair with cheap Chinese tools is materially supporting Chinese military aggression and we’re going to have to counter it with US taxes. (Not really an “if”, it’s happening now).

I suspect Chinese tool makers, who may well be “dual use” industries, are laughing at the “stupid Americans” praising them on garagejournal.

I wish China were more like Japan and Korea. We have trade deficits with both countries, but not as bad as with China, who really play dirty economically.

I just bought a Milwaukee track saw, which is 100% Chinese and not at all ****. I have no recommendations or judgement and I don’t lay awake at night thinking about it, but I think I could be more selective about where my tools come from.

 

[nadogail]

Back in the day, mid 1960's, I made several purchases from JC Whitney. I found their 3/8" drive metric sockets to be attractively priced and of decent quality.

Their customer service seemed to be poor, they apparently were not reading the letters I sent them trying to rectify the small disagreements I had with them.

They are not missed.

 

[Shoreline_]

I had a lot of east coast marketplace (now ocean state job lot) tools. I forgot the name. Calhawk?

 

[zendriver]

I just worry that our love affair with cheap Chinese tools is materially supporting Chinese military aggression and we’re going to have to counter it with US taxes. (Not really an “if”, it’s happening now).

I suspect Chinese tool makers, who may well be “dual use” industries, are laughing at the “stupid Americans” praising them on garagejournal.

I wish China were more like Japan and Korea. We have trade deficits with both countries, but not as bad as with China, who really play dirty economically.

I just bought a Milwaukee track saw, which is 100% Chinese and not at all ****. I have no recommendations or judgement and I don’t lay awake at night thinking about it, but I think I could be more selective about where my tools come from.

You're buying Chinese product that you actually like.

Wouldn't they be laughing at you as well?

 

[four.cycle]

^ "CalHawk" was an imported line of diagnostic tools: timing lights, dwell meters, etc. Was part of "Orion Industries" in the late 1970s (same "Orion" that owned Cal Custom, Hollywood Accessories, and a few other schlock lines.)
Cheesy stuff. Low end. Fabulous packaging and graphics. Sold quite well. Sales rep was Russ Horn (Rogovoy & Horn.)

 

[oni888]

^ part number EOK Yale.
Yale Engineering Company, 4025 N. Ravenswood Ave., Chicago, IL 60613

We sold thousands of them. Sales rep was one Mr. Robert E. Lee (of Lee & Lee, of course.)
We bought a lot of stuff from Bob. L&S Bearings, Alloy U-Joints, Master fuel pumps.... Yale was one of his "little" lines.
The pellets are compressed graphite. The goo in the can was about 7 times stickier and thicker than "STP Oil Treatment".
Pull the plugs, drop three or four of those graphite pellets into the combustion chamber, pour that monkey milk into the crankcase, and voila! Cha-Ching! Another ten bucks in the cash register as we laugh as you pull out of the parking lot.

Remember what P.T. Barnum said?
Here's a guy on the web claiming this stuff actually works.
I kid you not.

Are you done laughing yet?
We had a LOT of customers who came back and bought another one for their other oil-burner! (I kid you not.)

Yale also made this "Muffler Putty" stuff:

I don't know what was in it... ground up asbestos maybe, or pieces of Jimmy Hoffa... no clue.
It came in a tube about the size of a large tube of toothpaste. Battleship gray. Lumpy, sticky gray stuff.
When I sold a customer a tube of it, I'd also sell them a couple gigantic stainless steel hose clamps, and instruct them to slice open an empty beer can , flatten it out, put the goop all over one side, and then affix that "patch" over the hole and secure it with the hose clamps. Some guys went cheap and just used old coat-hanger wire - worked just as good. Was actually a good product if your goal was to "glue" your exhaust system back together long enough to sell the car.

YMMV

Midas muffler in Stow, OH uses that muffler ****.

 

[IRQVET]

China built tools are a funny thing. The fact is they can make whatever to the quality standards the distributor is willing to pay them for. You can find quality tools from China, it can be rare, but it can absolutely happen. (Icon from HF comes to mind, as they tend to thread that needle, leaning more toward the expensive side of the house as of late)

What is funny if your a student of history, is tools from Japan. Back in the day, total throw away. Now, some Japanese tools are the highest quality you’ll find anywhere; especially when alot of their American counterparts are no longer making tools in the U.S.

Tool shopping today is a real hunt and peck game, if quality and price are foremost in your brain. But thats the thrill of the hunt I find so satisfying but loath at the same time. . . especially when you used to be able to walk into Sears and find quality and price go hand-in-hand. Probably why I gravitate toward Tekton as much as I have as of late . . .

 

[oni888]

^ part number EOK Yale.
Yale Engineering Company, 4025 N. Ravenswood Ave., Chicago, IL 60613

We sold thousands of them. Sales rep was one Mr. Robert E. Lee (of Lee & Lee, of course.)
We bought a lot of stuff from Bob. L&S Bearings, Alloy U-Joints, Master fuel pumps.... Yale was one of his "little" lines.
The pellets are compressed graphite. The goo in the can was about 7 times stickier and thicker than "STP Oil Treatment".
Pull the plugs, drop three or four of those graphite pellets into the combustion chamber, pour that monkey milk into the crankcase, and voila! Cha-Ching! Another ten bucks in the cash register as we laugh as you pull out of the parking lot.

Remember what P.T. Barnum said?
Here's a guy on the web claiming this stuff actually works.
I kid you not.

Are you done laughing yet?
We had a LOT of customers who came back and bought another one for their other oil-burner! (I kid you not.)

Yale also made this "Muffler Putty" stuff:

I don't know what was in it... ground up asbestos maybe, or pieces of Jimmy Hoffa... no clue.
It came in a tube about the size of a large tube of toothpaste. Battleship gray. Lumpy, sticky gray stuff.
When I sold a customer a tube of it, I'd also sell them a couple gigantic stainless steel hose clamps, and instruct them to slice open an empty beer can , flatten it out, put the goop all over one side, and then affix that "patch" over the hole and secure it with the hose clamps. Some guys went cheap and just used old coat-hanger wire - worked just as good. Was actually a good product if your goal was to "glue" your exhaust system back together long enough to sell the car.

YMMV

 

[woody 73]

Sigh, I remember every single name on both of these pages, yet I cannot recall what I just ate this morning...

The memories are flooding in, wish I had the web back in my youth oh the stories I could have talked about all these tool companies. Oh well better late than never.

 

[Nutria]

Yeah, but Harbor Freight can't sell you Winky the Cat. Sheesh, I can even still smell the newsprint of those JC Whitney catalogs . . .

 

[chris142]

^ part number EOK Yale.
Yale Engineering Company, 4025 N. Ravenswood Ave., Chicago, IL 60613

We sold thousands of them. Sales rep was one Mr. Robert E. Lee (of Lee & Lee, of course.)
We bought a lot of stuff from Bob. L&S Bearings, Alloy U-Joints, Master fuel pumps.... Yale was one of his "little" lines.
The pellets are compressed graphite. The goo in the can was about 7 times stickier and thicker than "STP Oil Treatment".
Pull the plugs, drop three or four of those graphite pellets into the combustion chamber, pour that monkey milk into the crankcase, and voila! Cha-Ching! Another ten bucks in the cash register as we laugh as you pull out of the parking lot.

Remember what P.T. Barnum said?
Here's a guy on the web claiming this stuff actually works.
I kid you not.

Are you done laughing yet?
We had a LOT of customers who came back and bought another one for their other oil-burner! (I kid you not.)

Yale also made this "Muffler Putty" stuff:

I don't know what was in it... ground up asbestos maybe, or pieces of Jimmy Hoffa... no clue.
It came in a tube about the size of a large tube of toothpaste. Battleship gray. Lumpy, sticky gray stuff.
When I sold a customer a tube of it, I'd also sell them a couple gigantic stainless steel hose clamps, and instruct them to slice open an empty beer can , flatten it out, put the goop all over one side, and then affix that "patch" over the hole and secure it with the hose clamps. Some guys went cheap and just used old coat-hanger wire - worked just as good. Was actually a good product if your goal was to "glue" your exhaust system back together long enough to sell the car.

YMMV

Wouldn't the compressed graphite foul spark plugs?

 

[four.cycle]

^ I have no clue.. I just sold the stuff.

I think we got out "Blinking Eye Kitty Kats" from Walfrin-LaCal.
Owned by a guy named Wally Schffrin.
They were the outfit that made the "Wild Woodpecker" decals.
We got fuzzy mirror muffs, fuzzy visor muffs, and fuzzy rear deck mats from them as well. (The chenille fur rear deck mats came in various colors - one of the best sellers was the leopard-spot one. )

 

[jayemm]

Good ol' J.C. Whitney. Back about 1974 I ordered a "complete water pump assembly" from their catalog for my 1967 BMW 1600-2. Of course the price was way cheaper than the local BMW dealer and I was a poor college student. What I got was the shaft mounted in the bearing or a shaft and bearing that went to something. I dunno. No casting or impeller. Pump leaking worst when received package. Went to dealer, bought new water pump and installed. No more JCW.

 

[oni888]

I've never even seen a J.C. Whitney catalog, let alone owned any of their products, so I can't speak to the quality of your socket set.

If it was on a par level of quality as some of the garbage we were peddling in the 70's and early 80's, those sockets were made out of sawdust and glue, not cheese. Cheese would have held up better.

We originally started with Hollywood Accessories, as they were a line we were already carrying.
Then a guy named Bill Bolando started a company he called "Wilmar" up in Kent, and we started buying from them.
We could sell the Wilmar set for $8.88 retail and double our money in the stores, AND make 20% at the warehouse. Pure gravy.
Then one of the sales reps who sold us a ton of stuff, Cal Steiner, came in one day with a 40-piece 1/4" and 3/8" drive socket set - available in metric or standard - laid in from Los Angeles at $1.63 each (including shipping), AND we got 2% 10th proximo terms AND we finagled some ad money out of him on a couple other lines. Catch was: we had to buy them by the gross.
We brought them in. Blew them out on an ad for $3.99 LIFETIME GUARANTEE. We just told the people in the stores "Doesn't MATTER - just hand 'em a new one." We still made money on them.
Years later, I brought a huge box of "defective" sets downstairs out of the warehouse, salvaged some of the decent pieces out and gave theWarshawsky'sm to a buddy who needed tools, and tossed the rest in the dumpster.

"BUFFALO" brand. Black label with Orange graphics - horrid looking graphics on the label.

maybe you saw its catalogues under the name Warshawsky's. same company, same junk. the store in Chicago was called JC Whitney on one street entrance and Warshawsy's on the opposite entrance.

 

[rust in the eye]

Back in the day many grocery and convenience stores had a table of Globemaster tools. They were the bottom of the barrel ****, but I still have a tack hammer I bought as a 12 or 13 year old. Most of it sold for $1.00.

Globemaster had a distribution center in the town where I grew up and several of my high school friends had part time jobs there picking orders. A few of those orders they picked for themselves and their friends. These tools were worth what we paid for them. I recall that many were from India and crudely made.
China, India, etc are all capable of building whatever the customer desires. It is the consumer that dictates the price and those countries with cheap labor oblige the chiselers.
Another friend was a specialty tool "manufacturer", all his manufacturing was subcontracted, mostly in China. He always said they would build to your spec. good or bad but did need oversight. Most anyone that buys from a tool truck will have some of his gear in their tool box, sometimes with a well regarded name applied.

^ part number EOK Yale.
Yale Engineering Company, 4025 N. Ravenswood Ave., Chicago, IL 60613

We sold thousands of them. Sales rep was one Mr. Robert E. Lee (of Lee & Lee, of course.)
We bought a lot of stuff from Bob. L&S Bearings, Alloy U-Joints, Master fuel pumps.... Yale was one of his "little" lines.
The pellets are compressed graphite. The goo in the can was about 7 times stickier and thicker than "STP Oil Treatment".
Pull the plugs, drop three or four of those graphite pellets into the combustion chamber, pour that monkey milk into the crankcase, and voila! Cha-Ching! Another ten bucks in the cash register as we laugh as you pull out of the parking lot.

Remember what P.T. Barnum said?
Here's a guy on the web claiming this stuff actually works.
I kid you not.

Are you done laughing yet?
We had a LOT of customers who came back and bought another one for their other oil-burner! (I kid you not.)

Yale also made this "Muffler Putty" stuff:

I don't know what was in it... ground up asbestos maybe, or pieces of Jimmy Hoffa... no clue.
It came in a tube about the size of a large tube of toothpaste. Battleship gray. Lumpy, sticky gray stuff.
When I sold a customer a tube of it, I'd also sell them a couple gigantic stainless steel hose clamps, and instruct them to slice open an empty beer can , flatten it out, put the goop all over one side, and then affix that "patch" over the hole and secure it with the hose clamps. Some guys went cheap and just used old coat-hanger wire - worked just as good. Was actually a good product if your goal was to "glue" your exhaust system back together long enough to sell the car.

YMMV

This is still sold and works quite well for sealing joints where the slip fit is a bit loose.

 

[dchawk81]

There has been a lot of discussion on this forum about the relative quality of tools. Chinese; Japanese; American. We all know that Chinese tools are not as nice as top-tier brands like Snap-on.
But, how many of you remember what cheap tools were like back in the 1960's and '70's? I remember buying a socket set and ratchet from J.C. Whitney in Chicago. I used to buy a lot of car parts from them.
So, this socket set was really inexpensive. I don't remember where it was made or exactly how much (maybe $6.00 in 1970), but I had to buy it. (I was a poor high school kid.) When it came in the mail, I took a look. The sockets looked like they were made from some kind of pot metal. I tried them out on my car, and very quickly rounded out the insides of the sockets. The metal was much softer than the metal of the fastener. Needless to say, I threw them out and learned a lesson.
My point here is that the quality from a place like Harbor Freight is light years ahead of this set from Whitney. So, things could be worse!
HF sells pretty good stuff for the money. My only alternative back in the day was to go to Montgomery Wards or Sears. Their tools were good, but a lot more money. It is nice that we have a low priced alternative these days that actually will work.
Not everything was better back in the old days..........

I remember when HF socket and wrench broachings weren't even centered.

 

[zendriver]

I was poor in the middle '80s and grudgingly repairing the massive rust on my 4 year old Toyota pickup.

I was super annoyed having to pay almost 3 bucks, for a dozen pop-rivets at he local hardware store. J C Whitney had a box of like 400 pop rivets for $11. Might have been the first(maybe only) thing I ever purchased from them.

Well, they did go pop no problem and I think I still have a baggie somewhere with about 250 left.