Anything better than Craftsman for home tools?

All,

Thank you very much for the input! Looks like I need to do more comparison shopping before I make any purchases.

Considering the new info being shed about Craftsman, I'll most likely buy better than I need, as dependability is important, even though I may not use them much now. Also, who knows if my "usage" needs will change in the future. (It might be occasional use now, but what if I want to do the interior finish work on a small cottage or add an addition later on [long-term retirement dream]? I'd be outta luck with poorer quality tools.)


Rob,

Thank you for the links and and excellent synopsis of pros vs. cons (especially re: Craftsman dropping their warranty). I'll definitely remember your suggestions while checking brand availability at Home Depot, etc...


julianl & The Tourist,

Thank you as well for the list of brands and dealers. I'll add those to the other brands mentioned and shop around during this Fall to see what I can find. I've been looking for what is the best return on my money, and if that means I have to spend a little more to have long-term quality products, then I'll do it. Even if I have to save a little longer to buy them...

Thanks again everyone!
 
Originally posted by Deb Mc
Thank you for the links and and excellent synopsis of pros vs. cons (especially re: Craftsman dropping their warranty). I'll definitely remember your suggestions while checking brand availability at Home Depot, etc...
Click to expand...

I don't think Craftsman is dropping their lifetime warranty on hand tools. What does sometimes happen is if you break a Craftsman, the store may try to substitute a non-Craftsman replacement for you that doesn't have the warranty. Be aware of this and don't let them give you a non-Craftsman variant.
 
Originally posted by Skyline
I don't think Craftsman is dropping their lifetime warranty on hand tools. What does sometimes happen is if you break a Craftsman, the store may try to substitute a non-Craftsman replacement for you that doesn't have the warranty. Be aware of this and don't let them give you a non-Craftsman variant.
Click to expand...


Skyline,

Hi!

Isn't that just the same though? Sure, they give you one replacement tool, but that isn't equal to the previous "lifetime guarantee" that they offered.

Why buy something with a substandard warranty when there are other comparable (or better) tools for the same/near the same price.

It seems as though Craftsman has finally gone the "planned obsolesence" route. I'm disappointed, to say the least...
 
Hmm, I don't know if they can force you to take a non-Craftsman as a suitable replacement. I certainly would not accept it. It'd be interesting to find out the "real" policy...
 
Craftsman punches and chisels are soft - don't waste your money on them. Been plenty happy with Mayhew brand myself.

Craftsman adjustable wrenches are terrible - Crescent brand is very good and cheaper last time I looked.

Craftsman pliers are poor quality as well. Hard on my hands, poor leverage, not enough bite, etc. Again, Crescent brand is very good and priced the same or less.

Gas powered tools - Stihl or Echo (commercial line).

Gransfor Bruk Axe is awesome. I've seen none better for the same money.

Electric tools - DeWalt, Porter Cable, Bosch, Makita all work pretty good in their element with slight differences in specific tools. Craftsman :barf:

When buying regular hand tools - be they screwdrivers, wrenches, sockets, etc., consider the cost of rounding off bolt heads, stripping out screw heads, etc. Now add the inconvenience of driving to the store on a Saturday night to get the replacements so you can work on it Sunday afternoon.

Hand tools I personally have owned, purchased, used:
  • Proto wrenches and sockets - again great tools with no flex, accurate cuts in the heads, and top qualit tools
  • Craftsman handtools - I've owned them all - some were great tools and some were total P.O.S.
  • Random pieces of all the other "Professional" tool lines - Mayhew and Crescent both pop to mind prominently.

If you buy good quality tools, you buy them once and pass them down through the generations. In my case, Grand Pa, Father, now myself, and on to my heirs :)

By a smaller set of better tools today, then more later. They won't break, flex, strip - round -or otherwise mangle what you are working on either.

When I was in Junior High School, I started buying GOOD QUALITY tools, and other then loosing a few to foolishness and stupidity on my part, they are all still with me. ~$2 to $5 a wrench/socket on a kid who had $5 a week for movies, after school activities with friends, etc. makes those tool purchases pretty expensive at the time. It was also money well spent.
 
Originally posted by Skyline
Hmm, I don't know if they can force you to take a non-Craftsman as a suitable replacement. I certainly would not accept it. It'd be interesting to find out the "real" policy...
Click to expand...
I'm not sure you have anything to worry about with, say, sockets, drives, crescent wrenches, pliers, dykes, screwdrivers. This stuff is kind of the core of the Craftsman "franchise".

The example I saw first-hand was, as I noted, sheet metal shears/snips. They no longer sold "Craftsman" branded shears, and only sold some foreign (that doesn't necessarily have to be bad, however...) shears that did NOT have a lifetime warranty, and I heard the store manager tell the guy this directly (to his credit).

Sears is also offering a cheaper product line called "Companion", as distinct from "Craftsman". Example: 12" crescent wrench:

Craftsman is $27 to $30 (2 models).
http://www.sears.com/sr/product/det...OOL&prod_id=00944169000&fromAuto=YES&bidsite=

Note they mention "guaranteed forever" in warranty section of above.

Companion is $19. I believe this one does NOT carry lifetime warranty.
http://www.sears.com/sr/product/det...OOL&prod_id=00930412000&fromAuto=YES&bidsite=

No mention of warranty on "Companion"

In this example, 12" Crescent wrench, you have nothing to worry about... not yet anyway. But in the case of those shears, you had no real choice... I mean, you take the cheapies in warranty claim, or you leave the store with your broken shears.

My point: caveat emptor. You have to read, or ask about, what you are getting now. And more to the point, wonder "will they continue with this tool in the Craftsman line" and if so "for how long".

I ain't no Nostradamus... it's hard to imagine Sears going completely Ch 11, but Eastern and Enron employees thought the same thing. I'd guess the Craftsman franchise would survive the demise of Sears, somehow, but I ain't Nostradamus either. And I saw this big, beautiful Sears hardware store (totally separate from a regular Sears, like a giant Ace Hardware) very empty of customers, and it went under.
 
For wrenches and sockets, I've used Craftsman with no problems, but that's about all I've ever bought from Sears, for other tools there are brands I like more.

Pliers-Vise Grip and Channel lock
Hammers-Estwing
Files-Nicholson
Screwdrivers-I'm not to picky because my wife will eventually use them all to open paint cans and fubar the tips. Although for gun work, Brownell's has a great set of interechangable tips.
Power tools-I've used Dewalt, and a contracter I worked with beat the dog$hit out of his Dewalt stuff, but others have reported poor luck.

As far as who's making what, we did an inspection of a tool and forge company in my city that makes wrenches and sockets for a lot of companies, although they wouldn't tell me who. They also market the tools under their own name. Like most things in the world, there aren't that many companies actually making a product, but there are a lot putting different names on it.
 
Another one... you absolutely cannot go wrong with craftsmans line of impact sockets... I tried using a 5/8ths 1/2 inch drive as a spacer on a gear puller... The gear puller lost threads! My socket is FINE! :D
 
I worked in Sears hardware in my college days, late 80s. Most of what we had come in for replacement were sockets and screwdrivers. Third would be ratchets, usually just gave them a replacement kit for the ratchet mechanism. Most of the blown sockets were the deep variety that would spliit along the sidewall. Most of those were 3/8 sockets that had been used in air tools. We could tell, but we replaced them anyway.

Occasionally, a really old tool would come in for replacements. Some interesting old varieties of rachets out there. Overall, the older the tool was the better the quality was. Craftsman has slipped through the decades.

I still have boxes of Craftsman tools I bought on discount that have served me well. And I occasionally buy new Craftsman tools, usually those tools that have a short lifespan. Wire brushes, putty knives, hex wrenches, screwdrivers and such. Buy em once, replace as long as Sears survives.

I suspect that even if Sears were to go under, a competitor would probably pick up the Craftsman brand and support the guarantee. Plenty of money still to be had there.

Anyway, about the non Craftsman replacements. At the time I was there, they had stopped making Craftsman brand mini screwdrivers, the really small eyeglass kind. Too many of them failed so they were dropped. First, they were too expensive to keep replacing and they gave the Craftsman brand a bad name. They have since come out with other Craftsman mini screwdrivers. The shears, same story. Too much failure so it was dropped from the Craftsman line. We'd replace a Craftsman shear with what we had, but that was the end of the warranty, true. If there is no Craftsman shear, what else can it be replaced with? Sad but true.

Phil
 
I have a few Craftsman tools, but they're basically ones I found in the street, or in the case of my Router, a gift from my Mother. I have never turned wrenches for a living as an adult, but I started working in a hot rod shop in 7th grade as a gofer. Then I worked in a gas station through high school and then worked in machine shops for a year or two after school. I worked on my own cars and motorcycles until finally being able to afford a new car with a warranty. One thing I learned is to buy quality and only cry once. Sure it's a little more expensive up front, but if you need the tool now, you'll probably need it again at some point. The points made above about the more precise fit on the fastner is very valid. Not just because of the mangling that cheaper tools do to your fastners, but it is in fact a safety issue. I'm sure plenty of folks here have had that cheap socket or wrench slip on a nut at the wrong time and end up with a split knuckle or worse as a result. It's downright painful and could result in a trip to the ER.

Another good thing about better quality tools is that if you ever really need to, and I mean really, really need to, you can sell tehm as they do retain some resale value.

When it comes to driver type tools (Sockets, wrenches, screwdrivers), I have almost exclusively Snap-On and Mac. Some of these tools I bought used in good condition at a considerable discount as the person was either retiring or making stupid decisions and thought selling his tools would be a good way to make ends meet (probably works once..:(). When it comes to ratchets, there is really nothing like a snap on to me. Not only do they seem to work better than the Craftsman and Mac ratchets I've owned, because tehy were built for professional use, if they start to wear significantly, you can get a rebuild kit for them! Snap-On still has a lifetie warranty on their non power tools as well.

I've also bought both of my roll-away tool boxes used. One's a Craftsman stack and the other has two Snap-On top & middle boxes on a Craftsman bottom box. Here again it seems you get what you pay for. The Snap-On boxes are better built.

I started buying my tools in Jr. High like Sid Post, and while some of them were used, I have felt the bite of paying the Snap-On man top dollar for a new tool I had to have, but I don't regret it as those tools never let me down and some of them are now over 25 years old.

For corded power tools like saws I've always gotten good service from Black & Decker although I'll admit there's better out there. I like Makita cordless stuff, but DeWalt is certainly great stuff too.

For pliers and dikes I think Channel Lock makes great stuff. Here again I have some 20 year old tools that still work well.
Klein makes great electrical crimpers.

The tool quality issue has recently raised it's ugly head in a big way in my garage. I've decided to pursue my metal working past and try my hand at building a garage based home machine/hobby/knife shop. I already have lots of hand and portable power tools, but decided I wanted a mill, lathe and larger grinder. I located a good deal on a small Taiwanese made metal bench lathe and bench mill and added them to my tool collection. On my first few projects I kept feeling like I was having to work too hard and not getting satisfactory results. Then a bad (read expensive) thing happened. A friend who knew I had been looking for some used machines (but didn't know I'd bought the Taiwanese stuff) called and told me about a lathe I should go look at. I was already frustrated with my little lathe so I went along. A soon as I fired the machine up and twisted a few dials it was all over. Now I have to find homes for my existing machines as I've arranged to purchase the Hardinge lathe he directed me to and am in the hunt for a Bridgeport mill. These are both heavy American made iron and will do anything I could ever ask, and then be passed down to another generation of machinists and still do tight work. The lathe was built in 1929 and will still hold incredibly tight tolerances. It weighs nearly 1800lbs where the new Taiwanese lathe weighs around 400lbs. Both are specified to take a maximum woorkpiece of 9"x20" so it's not like one's really a lot larger, just way better built. Unfortunately I'd spent time in machine shops and knew what a real machine was capable of, and once I was re-introduced to a real machine, I couldn't live with the imports anymore. They'd probably be fine for anyone who was just getting into machining as a hobby, but had never worked in a real shop. Lucky for me (but bad for our country) so much manucafturing is moving to China and Singapore that I can now afford true industrial grade machines for my home shop where even ten years ago machines like these would have been unthinkably expensive for all but the wealthiest home shop owner(I don't fit that last description).

I realize that you're not setting up a machine shop and may never use your tools much, but my point is if you buy the best you can afford you'll likely be happier and safer in the long run.

Just my rambling opinion.

jmx
 
What kind of insane torque are ya trying to crank that 3/4 breaker bar to?

I've used 1/2 inch breakers with 8 feet of pipe jumping on em... bent em before but never BROKEN em.

wowza. :eek:
 
Nothing wrong with Craftsman. Thats what I have been buying for myself the past few years. I did manage to get a nice set of Snap-On and Matco tools when I was in the pawn business, but I still like the warranty of Craftsman better for the money.

I do have a 1/2" socket set and wrench made by S&K that is about 20 years old, and still working fine. I don't think they still make these, and they were probably cheap when they did.
 
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