Sockets

My old man passed away leaving more Snap On tools than you can shake a box end wrench at. He had them for many decades and was NOT easy on tools. That was all the convincing I needed growing up.

Unless you're rich- you can't afford cheap tools.

Highbeam said:

I say buy HF on the sockets. Nobody here has had a single bad experience with them, just old men bashing china products.

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I'm not old (not by Hearth.com standard's anyway... ) and I've seen some wonderful things come out of China. HF tools are a crapshoot at best. There's a reason they don't ask questions when you bring them back.

Highbeam said:

I say buy HF on the sockets. Nobody here has had a single bad experience with them, just old men bashing china products.

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Nothing against Chinese products necessarily, just saying that flank drive/headlock impact sockets are definitely far superior to conventional sockets, and they are worth the extra money to minimize the risk of getting yourself in a bind. Rounding off the head of a suspension fastener late Sunday afternoon is a bad experience that can be prevented with a superior quality socket, and not having to resort to the hot wrench every time you turn around can save a lot of time.

This old man can routinely pull the front strut, R&R an Audi front wheel bearing, and drive away inside of forty five minutes with an extra $200 in his pocket, but I can't do it reliably without sockets that work well.

Bottom line, If you try hard enough you can break ANY tool. I've broken Snapon breaker bars with on pipes on them. The difference is what it takes to break them. Cheap tools break with less effort and can (usually) cause MORE damage and make more work than quality tools.

BTW Eliot, I'm sure that you DID report that extra $200 when you did your taxes didn't you???

greg13 said:

... you DID report that extra $200 when you did your taxes didn't you???

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Yeah that would be just like New York to tax us on money saved as implied wages, the SOBs.

Last fall my neighbor was showing me his new woodshed lean-to filled up ready for winter, and so I asked him if he had filed his cordwood declarations with the DEC yet. He says he's never heard of them. So I tell him that New York had realized how much income and sales tax they were missing out on and that they had come up with a 'natural resource depletion fee' of $36 per cord. He only believed for about a second and a half, but only because he figured out it wasn't practical, not because it wasn't something they would do if they could.
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It's more like unless your rich, you can't afford tool truck tools!

If it makes a person feel better to say their $175 ratchet makes then more money than a $25 one, I guess whatever makes them sleep at night.

I'll 100% agree that there are many tools that a certain brand or type is what is needed, the imitations don't hold up, but for 95% of the general use tools, that is not the case.

Please keep in mind I'm not just talking out of my butt on tools. I used to manage a tool room with about 2 million dollars of tools. I do auto repair on my own time, plus I'm pretty much a jack of all trades, but my day job is putting together bombs... and we use all sorts of tools for that.
We had just about every brand you can think of and I'm sure some only a few people have every heard of or seen.

The guys would break Snap On, Matco or Cornwell stuff just the same as Craftsman or Harbor Freight. Usually the tool trucks where a PITA to deal with, 20 excuses on why it wasn't warrantied or it'd take several months to get a replacement. We get a 50-60% discount with the tool trucks, only reason why we stayed with them.

I could make lists of what brands had stuff that sucked, but there's no point because someone else will just argue that they have owned xyz tool for 175 years and it works just fine.

Yes, there are applications (such as flat raters) That the $175 ratchet WILL you make more money than $25 one. Time is money. The thing that bugs me is that manufactures are in cahoots with the tool makers. Why do we need the "new" fasteners such as Torx, double square, reverse torx? What happened to the basic hex head, Allen head, and basic screw head?

greg13 said:

Yes, there are applications (such as flat raters) That the $175 ratchet WILL you make more money than $25 one. Time is money. The thing that bugs me is that manufactures are in cahoots with the tool makers. Why do we need the "new" fasteners such as Torx, double square, reverse torx? What happened to the basic hex head, Allen head, and basic screw head?

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I'll welcome Torx with open arms. I even like it better than Allen head. Inverted Torx is a great tech for studs, makes installing/removing them a breeze.

I would really like to see slotted and phillips go away. Thankfully pozidrive is nearly extinct. I don't see a need for every fastener manufacturer to have their own proprietary drivers but some of these newer configurations work so much better than the traditional setups.

Jeep was horrible about Torx for a while. The bolts are made with crap metal so unless it's never seen a winter the head is gonna strip out long before the bolt is coming out.

I've got all the Torx drivers and sockets in male and female but never liked them. Lots of time a Trox well strip out a tough bolt unless you drive it with a impact wrench. I've often thought I'd like to meet the Torx inventer in a dark lonesome alley some night. David

I buy the best possible tool I can afford. I'm a casual wrencher but use my tools more than an average homeowner. I have almost zero Chinese tools and intend to keep it that way. Mostly I have Craftsman and Snap On with some SK and Armstrong sprinkled in. The real shame in the tool world these days is Craftsman hardline tools are starting to be imported from overseas. Harline tools are sockets, ratchets, wrenches, screwdrivers. I was at my sears yesterday and noticed this changover with certain items and the new import tools are not as nice. Sears/Craftsman is on life support but if you go now you can still get some USA made tools. FWIW I think USA made Craftsman sockets are tough as hell. I've only broken a couple under severe abuse and they are the best bang for your $$$.

As for Harbor Freight, I view that place the same as wanting to go to a strip club but instead showing up at a nursing home with a fistfull of dollars. The place is a joke.

HF impact sockets are fine. Not made in China, but Taiwan, where a lot of quality sockets are made./

Some HF freight stuff is cheap, but so far any hand tools I have used I have been very pleased with. It is hard to pass up deals where you can get 6 different pliers for $5 or 6 crescent wrenches for $5, free screw drivers etc. I do not know how they do it but I have used cheap crescent wrenches that slip and channel locks that slip, but I have never had a problem with a HF hand tool (I have the real deal channel locks made right here in Meadville PA and notice no difference). I bought some long handled wrenches for pretty reasonable and they are treating me fine. I like to have tools in the car and and the lake house and in my 3 different garages and I like having tools around. There stuff is not that bad and for the money it could be a throw away item. I had a problem with an air grease gun and they took it right back and the replaced item is fine.

Halligan said:

As for Harbor Freight, I view that place the same as wanting to go to a strip club but instead showing up at a nursing home with a fistfull of dollars. The place is a joke.

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I make my living with tools, and I refuse to use tool truck stuff. Vintage craftsman is easy to find at local farm auctions and sales for decent prices. To my surprise, the Husky line from H-D has been great, too. The Husky flat and Phillips head screwdrivers I have are all Made in USA, and I haven't killed one yet- Minus a little incident with 208.... Shoulda used the insulated screwdriver for that one... DeWalt for the power tools, good price and they hold up well.

golfandwoodnut said:

Some HF freight stuff is cheap, but so far any hand tools I have used I have been very pleased with. It is hard to pass up deals where you can get 6 different pliers for $5 or 6 crescent wrenches for $5, free screw drivers etc. I do not know how they do it but I have used cheap crescent wrenches that slip and channel locks that slip, but I have never had a problem with a HF hand tool (I have the real deal channel locks made right here in Meadville PA and notice no difference). I bought some long handled wrenches for pretty reasonable and they are treating me fine. I like to have tools in the car and and the lake house and in my 3 different garages and I like having tools around. There stuff is not that bad and for the money it could be a throw away item. I had a problem with an air grease gun and they took it right back and the replaced item is fine.

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You have the real deal Channel locks and didn't notice the difference?? Try going down to the unemployment office. If more people bought from American companies there would be less people there. It looks like the tide is finally starting to turn away from overseas labor, we need to keep it going.

greg13 said:

You have the real deal Channel locks and didn't notice the difference?? Try going down to the unemployment office. If more people bought from American companies there would be less people there. It looks like the tide is finally starting to turn away from overseas labor, we need to keep it going.

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It is unfortunate that sometimes it is hard to find things made in the USA, there is a TV show about trying to do it. I feel it is starting to comeback somewhat, but forget it for clothing etc. I did work for Hanesbrands and virtually everything is made overseas and shipping is the main expense. And the other unfortuneate thing is that some of the young people just do not want to work like they should. Why do you think there are so many Mexicans doing landscaping now? A golf course around here could not find any Americans that wanted the jobs.

Make no mistake, I'm not saying that it's the whole cure for the problems in the US, but it's a step in the right direction. There is way too much of our money going to foreign countries and not supporting our own.
You are 100% correct, many people don't want or need to work since we (the people that do work) support them.
I better stop now before I set off all kinds of alarms with the moderators.

golfandwoodnut said:

It is unfortunate that sometimes it is hard to find things made in the USA, there is a TV show about trying to do it. I feel it is starting to comeback somewhat, but forget it for clothing etc. I did work for Hanesbrands and virtually everything is made overseas and shipping is the main expense. And the other unfortuneate thing is that some of the young people just do not want to work like they should. Why do you think there are so many Mexicans doing landscaping now? A golf course around here could not find any Americans that wanted the jobs.

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I think I worked on the only course in the country that didn't have any Hispanics working on it. Unfortunately golf course jobs rarely pay enough (around here anyways) to live comfortably on unless you're up the ranks a little. Most of the grunt level jobs are seasonal anyways. You're right about the young'uns, you count on 1 in 3 of the summer kids we had getting fired or quitting before the season was out. Usually for being constantly late/no show, lieing, or even just plain lazy.

This is much of the problem. I work for a grocery chain and it just shocks me how lazy some of these kids are. There was a manager in training last night (probably 21 or 22 years old) who didn't want to deal with the trash compactor because she "didn't get paid enough." My shop area in that building is across from the comapctor, and I just about hit the roof. Try teaching these kids what do do in a power failure or with a refrigeration alarm...

There was a good article about this in Vegetable Grower's News awhile back- It basically said that in a trial legal migrant worker program, the over 90% of the migrant workers stayed the season, while only 5% of the American workers in the program stayed- most cited that the work was too difficult for the pay.