Home Depot Knives are Crap

C

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The place is a hardware store, right? I remember a friend of mine owned three Tru-Valu hardware stores and all three featured Buck knives, fixed and folding. His stores were very nice, great help and super service, but why can't the biggest hardware chain in the friggin' U.S. carry something better than the worst Dollar Store in the country?

What is it about the term "hardware" that they don't understand. And remember when they sold guns at hardware stores? And ammo?

Things just keep getting worse. I knew that it was a bad sign when seafood places stopped serving hushpuppies with their meals. Bad sign, indeed....

BadSign-1.jpg
 
They sell the Leatherman Core with a folding knife for a good price. That's all, though.
 
Bought my first "real" knife (5" fixed-blade Mora) in a Mom & Pop hardware store in 1959....the owners made me bring a note from my mother before they would sell it to me :-)
 
Confederate said:
Things just keep getting worse. I knew that it was a bad sign when seafood places stopped serving hushpuppies with their meals. Bad sign, indeed....
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You said it! No more hushpuppies at the local scales & tails is a sign of the apocalypse! :eek:

Okay...back to our regularly scheduled programming:

The only knife I've ever bought from HD is a Stanley utility cutter, and that's it. I have a connection with a friend at ACE here, and I can get Buck & Case brands for pretty good (for retail) prices.

thx - cpr
 
vic2367 said:
homedepot sells cheap knives and cheap flashlights,,
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Whereas Lowe's carries a small selection of Case knives, Leatherman and SOG tools, and Surefire flashlights. They have the cheaper items, too, but at least there is some higher quality stuff to pick from.
 
Home Depot=cheap

I'll stick to the local hardware store. They have "real" knives and tools. Plus the employees know what they are talking about.
 
Ah Pook said:
Home Depot=cheap

I'll stick to the local hardware store. They have "real" knives and tools. Plus the employees know what they are talking about.
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May be Home Cheapo has low quality knives, they do have some decent variety of quality hand tools and power tools that not every tradesman can afford to have. Although I prefer buying my tools from Tool Up or online, sometimes you can't beat the Home Depot avaliability in reagard of working hours they are open. Like that other night I was putting a new exhaust on my truck and it turned out that I needed a metric open wrench set to finish the installation @9:30 pm. Home Depot here I come for that Husky staff, which is not a SnapOn or SK, but in a line of a Craftsman quality, only made in the Asian country.
 
Home Depot= total garbage. I avoid Home Depot like the plague. It's well worth it to hunt around and find a "real" old-style hardware store. Shopping in a real hardware store vs. a soulless big box is like night and day. I frequent a local, very "old school" hardware store, and love it. I take my son there every Saturday morning just to look around. It also happens to be the only place in our city of 5+ million that has a full display of Case knives.
 
rookie4real said:
May be Home Cheapo has low quality knives, they do have some decent variety of quality hand tools and power tools that not every tradesman can afford to have. Although I prefer buying my tools from Tool Up or online, sometimes you can't beat the Home Depot avaliability in reagard of working hours they are open. Like that other night I was putting a new exhaust on my truck and it turned out that I needed a metric open wrench set to finish the installation @9:30 pm. Home Depot here I come for that Husky staff, which is not a SnapOn or SK, but in a line of a Craftsman quality, only made in the Asian country.
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Take a closer look at the power tools at HD. Some of the name brand power tools are really "lower quality" price points. If I'm buying a Dewalt, Old Milwaukee or Porter Cable that's what I want.

I'm not ragging on you, just putting a bug in your ear.;)
 
Home Depot is not a hardware store. They are a one-stop home improvement store that sells hardware as well as bricks, lumber, light bulbs and any number of other items.

Some of those items are top quality, and some are utter junk. They sell Hilti and Bosch power tools at many HD's, as well as Klein and Channellock hand tools, Purdy brushes, some good lumber, excellent Behr paint apparently the best CFL light bulbs etc. On the other hand they have those Husky tools, badly made bath cabinets and the like.

If you want convenience, you go to Home Depot. Also many towns that don't have a knife shop or a good mom and pop hardware or lumber store (that HD and Lowes may very well have crowded out) then you don't have a choice.

Just don't whine when you go to Home Depot expecting the highest quality selection in low volume items. If a contractor is unlikely to be buying XYZ on a regular basis, Home Depot will not carry it unless it's able to stock it at a novelty price, and at commensurate novelty quality.

If you want a good knife, go to a knife store or go online. If you want a good hand tool, seek out the local hardware store and pay a couple bucks extra to keep the guy's lights on. On the other hand if you want to buy spackle at 11:30 at night, go to the Home Depot.
 
Ah Pook said:
Take a closer look at the power tools at HD. Some of the name brand power tools are really "lower quality" price points. If I'm buying a Dewalt, Old Milwaukee or Porter Cable that's what I want.

I'm not ragging on you, just putting a bug in your ear.;)
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Gone are the days of a Dewalt tool being guaranteed quality I'm afraid. These days, all the power tool manufacturers have outsourced or out country'd almost all of their manufacturing. Most of them do not even own the factories that make their tools. I think Dewalt does in Mexico, but Milwaukie, Makita, etc. outsource them IIRC. Porter Cable was one of the last big tool co's to make tools in the US, but in the last couple years they outsourced nearly all of their manufacturing to license factories. In other words they're not even a design firm, and probably don't even hold the marketing or distribution rights either. The upside is that a consumer can buy a gray tool for much less $$ than before, the downside is that it's complete crap.
 
Probably their knives aren't good but I didn't see any that I remember; did get a Leatherman Wave at a decent price!
 
If I've been told correctly Dewalt and Ryobi are Home Depot owned brands, like Rigid.

Home Depot, like Lowe's, is a big box. I can't really call them a lumberyard, and I won't compare them to a hardware store. But none of them is a real good place to buy knives anymore. No discounts, limited stock, and always old school.

Those of you with old fashioned hardware stores should enjoy them, but like was said, HD and Lowe's are pushing out the little guy, and homogenizing the product offering. The best buys in knives these days are often online - where a little brick and mortar can survive by selling coast to coast and beating the big chains with lower overhead and a more responsive inventory.

Don't forget, in the day, local pharmacies did well with a knife board, too. I bought a Queen button lock from one, and I got a BM Vex today from NewGraham.

Home Depot will never carry Benchmade, and just as well.
 
bobofish said it, they are not a hardware store. If it is not used primarily for home maintenance or remodeling it is not in their business model.
 
tirod3 said:
If I've been told correctly Dewalt and Ryobi are Home Depot owned brands, like Rigid.
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Incorrect. Sorry.

DeWalt is owned by Black and Decker. Always has been. Black and Decker actually created the DeWalt brand in the 80's to compete with Porter-Cable (now also owned by Black and Decker), Milwaulkie, Skil, and the other high end tools at the time.

Ryobi, IIRC, is still made by Emerson Electric, and I think Ridgid is as well, with exclusive contracts with HD. That is why they aren't available anywhere else.

All of my cordless power tools are Dewalt. When they quit, or I get tired of buying expensive replacement batteries, then I'll switch to Ridgid. Why? Because Ridgid's power tool, INCLUDING THE BATTERIES are lifetime warranted by HD. This is directly off of the box of their tools, and from the mouth of the local HD manager.

What a deal!
 
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