what is the next viable option for tools?
I am looking for American made, lifetime warranty yet affordable for the home mechanic.
Sorry if this has been answered in other threads. Most of them are 10 pages and contain a slew of jibberish. Thanks friends!
Buying brand new, Wright and SK are by far the two best options, IMO.
Wright is slightly nicer, and also tends to be slightly more expensive than SK, depending on what you're buying, of course. Some items in each of their lines don't follow that rule.
If buying used/second hand, amazing deals are to be had on Armstrong and Proto.
I think all four are roughly in the same ballpark, they each have their strengths and weaknesses.
I'll go over my personal observations of each:
Wright still uses Hexavalent chrome, and IMO currently has the best, if not some of the best chrome in the industry.
Wright's "Wrightgrip" wrenches are rivalled only by Snap-on's flank drive plus, but I find that the Wrights have more cleanly cut gripping teeth, that leave smaller but sharper marks in nuts and bolt heads.
Wright's ratchets are very affordable, and use a dual offset pawl design that gives them a higher effective tooth count than Snap-on Dual 80 ratchets.
They do have some rather odd empty spots in their lineup, and some strange aspects such as lack of detent on 1/4" drive sockets.
SK also still uses Hex Chrome, but I find it isn't quite as refined from piece to piece, as Wright's finish is. Amazing value can be had on their socket master sets, particularly the 1/4 and 3/8 sets.
There is some bad stuff from certain eras going around, so you do need to be a bit careful. I would say you are fairly safe if buying new today.
Proto is most comparable to Wright, in that they cater to industrial users, and have a similar "old school" aesthetic to their tools. Every example I have seen exhibits good quality at minimum. They recently released USA made ratcheting wrenches, and to my knowledge are one of only three current USA manufacturers of that tool.
Armstrong has both good and bad. You can get some items for dirt cheap on ebay, but it can be spotty for building an entire set. They have some excellent items in their line such as the long locking flex head ratchets, and others which aren't so excellent, such as their sockets which share the same double detent that Craftsman uses. I personally am not a fan of that feature.
on the Channellocks. They're the only brand of pliers I buy. Excellent quality at an affordable price.