What's the sizing range of the Toptul stuff? Is it a limited range right in the middle of the spectrum, or did they (do they?) offer a full range?
i.e. SAE 1/4" to 1-1/2", Metric 6mm to 32mm
??
All I've seen are smaller sets, not a "full" set.
There are other distributors. Steve D. (ultimategarage.com) is one, and there's bfbhandtools.com.
I haven't seen prices going up on things of interest to me at thetoolchest.ca, and I've looked at their site at least once a week over the last year. They do have sale prices sometimes, which is why I look. I bought my GPAW2601 set in early September when it was on sale.
The real issue isn't so much more distributors, it's the fact that the distributors all have a small subset of Toptul's offerings and in the case of Steve D, the popular items sell out fairly quickly. I think Toptul makes it difficult for distributors in North America to keep inventory by requiring large orders, but maybe Steve (user ultgar) will read this and comment. I've been waiting for him to restock and bring in more of their stuff but it hasn't happened yet.
Wow, not my experience at all. HF is the stuff I beat on because I don't care if it breaks. When I was curious about what the inside of my old water heater looked like I took a long pattern HF and a 3 lb dead blow and beat on it til started turning. When the cooler line to my radiator wouldn't come apart I used two HF wrenches counter holding and put a rope through the box ends and twisted it tight with another wrench until the connectors broke loose, and this is after a couple days of some husky mechanics trying brute force.
Cornwell is what I have as I sold the S-O's as they are too thin and really ring your hand when things break loose. I used to have to put a rag around the wrench when I really hand to load up as I knew it was going to hurt if not.