Years ago, Sears had a cheaper tool line than Craftsman marketed under the name Dunlap. My dad had a 1/4" electric drill set that was from the Dunlap line of tools. He used it at least 30 years.
I’ve been trying to recall all the brand names Sears used. Here are some of them:
Craftsman:. Tools
Dunlap:. Tools
Coodspot:. Refrigerators and freezers
Kenmore:. Washing machines, clothes dryers,ranges, vacuum cleaners
Silvertone: radios, televisions, musical instruments
J.C. Higgins: Sporting goods, guns, bicycles
Tower:. Typewriters
Harmony House:. Towels, sheets, paint, lightbulbs
Allstate: tires, insurance, motor oil, antifreeze
Die hard:. Auto batteries
Homart: water heaters
Elgin: outboard boat motors
Back about 1952, Sears even sold its own brand of car in some retail locations. The car was called “Allstate”. It was made by Kaiser/ Frazer and was a Henry J with slightly different trim.
Craftsman still has a budget tool line . . . it’s called Evolv
But the socket set I got was craftsman, not evolv
I’ll buy harbor fake, before I buy evolv
I’ve had many Kenmore appliances over the years. The results have been so-so. One dishwasher was extremely problematic, and the circuit board kept failing. Got it replaced once for free, because the machine was still relatively new. Paid twice out of pocket, I ordered the parts onine and installed myself. The third time, I decided to retire the piece of junk and get a different brand. Same thing with a range. Paid for repair once, the second time it didn’t make financial sense. Got rid of it in favor of a different brand.
I’ve had a few Diehard batteries over the years. No problems there. Got 4 - 5 years of good service, same as any other brand.
With the exception of the craftsman tools, I haven’t had any of the other stuff
Not trying to change the subject’ but does anyone know what happened to S K wayne tool’s.
I’ll really change the subject. The first power tool I ever got was a Manning-Bowman 1/4 drill from Coast to Coast for my birthday. I dunno, maybe 13 or something. Its what I wanted. The only power tool in the house for a long time. I used to like to hang around the Coast to Coast store after school hoping that the owner’s daughter would show up. Guess she didn’t like tools and hardware though.
Our KMart wasn’t horrible but you could start seeing the writing on the walls a few months before it closed. Lots of things were no longer being restocked. It was simple stuff like cat litter. I don’t think the employees officially knew but I did see a couple working at other stores so I think they knew. It wasn’t a bad place overall and the employees were decent. They kept it clean and helped as much as they could. There were some nice tools there by the end as well.
They had this “big sale” when they announced the closing. They just marked everything WAY up and then marked it down. There were a few good deals but a lot of nothing as well. It was pretty picked over and they started roping off most of the store and moving things into 1/4 of the building. They were even selling all the shelving and fixtures.
Harbor Freight isn’t really bad for what it is. I agree that I would go there before buying other cheap lines of tools. I needed a battery sawzall and saw a set for sale on clearance at Aldi. Their store brand food is pretty decent so I figured I didn’t have a lot to lose. I also bought a circular saw as it came with the battery and charger as well for $20.
I never even got to open the circular saw box but started in with the sawzall immediately. It worked great until the vibration of the tool caused the battery housing to break apart into many pieces and the pack fell out. It was so cheaply made. I used Gorilla tape to hold the pack in the back of the tool and wanted to at least finish this project. It worked great until I was almost done with the last cut and the tape came loose and the battery fell out again. I returned this as well as the circular saw in the unopened box. I bought the HF sawzall next time I was near one as that was the tool I really needed. The woman who took my return indicated that you never want to buy power tools or shoes at Aldi from what she has heard and seen.
People also tell me that Ryobi is a decent cheaper brand like for power tools. My dad has owned several and they seemed decent for what they were.
I’ve worked with some Ryobi power tools . . . they didn’t hold up to professional use
I suppose they might be okay for diy use
This was probably 15 year ago . . . unless things have drastically changed, I still wouldn’t recommend them for professional use
The may have improved. They guy who suggested them to me was a general contractor. He also suggested DeWalt as a mid-grade and Milwaukee as a top tier. He may also consider them his “disposable” line much like I consider Harbor Freight if it breaks. I really think quality varies in some of these cheaper lines. Some are probably OK for pro use while others are not.
I did some research on that Earthquake 20V impact from HF and it got great ratings for the money. It still wasn’t cheap so I didn’t want to throw my money away. I have talked to several others who actually prefer it to their name-brand impacts.
Although they are both German, there will be quite a difference in quality between an Aldi saw and a Festool. Price wise too.
When I bought my metal cutting chop saw, I wanted a good one so I bought a Milwaukee. When I got it home I saw it was made in China. I shoulda known I guess that nothing is made in Wisconsin anymore but it still has worked well for ten years. I bought one of those Tool Shop hammer drills at Menards too for I dunno, maybe $30. Just for once in a while drilling in concrete. I hold my breath every time I use it, expecting sparks and tool death. So far I guess I’ve gotten my money out of it but don’t expect much. I always plan the use when the stores are open so I can quick get another to finish the job if I have too. Still it has worked better than the abused rental tool.
The Aldi “Tool King” or whatever it was called is also from China. What isn’t? I am surprised Milwaukee has gone that way but it does seem like you can get decent Chinese made stuff these days which wasn’t the case in the past. You can still get junk as well. I don’t even remember the Aldi name as I had these tools for like 3 hours before returning them.
I actually bought a Hilti hammer drill from a guy that “needed money”. Thinking back I wonder if it was hot or not… Either way I have used this to set a few anchor bolts in concrete and it worked great. I also helped a buddy demo a small concrete pad that was outside his place. I guess the previous guy had used it for a grill or something but now it was ugly and cracked, plus a tripping hazard in his yard. I busted it up with the drill and he got rid of the rest, filled it with dirt, and you would have never known.
A Menards just opened here and I have wondered about the quality if their house brands myself. I like Menards more than the local Lowes overall but think Lowes is a step up in quality for tools. Their Kobalt brand seems better than anything I have seen under the Menards house brand. The whole store kinda has that “cheap” feel like going in a Harbor Freight while Lowes does not. That being said, I have no problems with a lot of the stuff I have bought there since they opened but have avoided things that seemed cheap.
I kinda want to get a nice set one of these days and not have to trash it because the batteries cost as much as the tool or are no longer available. I was given a cheap set and hated to just trash it but the batteries cost more than the tool new with batteries and charger included. It wasn’t worth it and I hung onto it a while. I threw it in with my last load of scrap metal. I could have tried to sell it on our local yard sale sites and FB Marketplace but it probably would have been more of a hassle than it was worth. Charities don’t want something unless it works. This was a cheaper set (maybe Ryobi) but I would hope that something like Dewalt or Milwaukee would make their batteries available for a while. It is likely that there would also be better aftermarkets for something like this. You can still get cases for an iPhone 5 but not some no-name phone. It is probably much the same with tools.
One thing about Meanards is the guy is a fierce competitor. They added their cheapo tool line a few years ago but usually if I buy at Menards, I’ll buy the name brand tools. Yeah, it’s too bad and used to be able to trust their tools regardless but not anymore. Still I’m usually there once a week at least.
Some of my more specialized tools I have gotten from the pawn shops. Buy at your own risk I guess. Most of my nail guns are from the pawn shops but admit I’ve had to overhaul them but the price was right. I got a Dewalt surface planer for $300 instead of $600 but by the time I got done with the needed repairs, I have come pretty close to the cost of a new one, so you never know. I suppose guys use this stuff to the point of needing replacement and then pawn it and buy a new one. Still for stuff only used once in a while, its been cost effective.
When did Milwaukee start building their tools in China?
I bought a Sawzall . . . at Sears, actually . . . and I just looked at the tool. The plate has the model number, manufacturer, serial number, etc. But it doesn’t state where it was built. It lists a manufacturer’s address. So what does that mean? USA or China?
i bought a 3/8" reversible Craftsman air drill on ebay several years ago, for $26. It might also have been hot, for all I know. But it’s served me well over the years.
But the craftsman tools that I am probably happiest with are the solder guns. I have 2 different models, and they seem to be high quality. I’m not entirely sure, but they might be rebranded Weller. Sears apparently no longer sells Craftsman solder guns, because I haven’t seen any on the shelves in years.
I’ve bought many tools over the years from pawn shops. But these were ebay purchases. Sometimes, it’s obvious it’s a pawn shop, because they say so, or you can tell from their name. Sometimes I wonder why tools that are supposed to enable somebody to put food on the table wind up in the pawn shops. Might be some sad story behind it. Hopefully not somebody pawning off tools to get quick cash for dope . . .
Lowes seems cleaner and less hectic than Home Depot, but I don’t really like the service I’ve gotten there. On 2 separate occasions, I gave them a chance to earn my business. I was looking for a range and a refrigerator. Both times, they played games, and said the prices I printed out . . . from their own website . . . were wrong. I said you either sell it to me for the price listed on the company website, or you lose the sale to Home Depot or Best Buy. That didn’t phase them, and they lost out.
I did finally buy a Weber grill at Lowes, just a year or two ago. I must have run into a decent salesman, because he didn’t want to play stupid games. Maybe I caught him, just before he was to go on break, and he just wanted to make a quick sale, who knows?
I don’t buy a lot at Lowes but sometimes they have what I’m looking for. I did buy some oak baseboard though last year. I needed 12’ and 8’ for what I figured. The two bins were right next to each other. Of course after they were all stained and ready to cut, I discovered the 8’ was about 1/4 wider than the 12’. Doesn’t make for good joints. I was able to use it in a place where it didn’t adjoin another trim piece so not a big deal but I never thought to measure what looked like identical trim right next to each other. Details details details I guess.
Sears problem (and many other large corporations) problems stemmed from Wall-Street always looking for growth in two ways (sales or profit). Doesn’t matter if you’re the leader and have a good steady product(s)…if it’s NOT growing then Wall-Street doesn’t like you.
Sears had grown to the largest retailer in the world. Sales were great and a good steady profit. But they weren’t growing. They had very little sales growth potential, so they choose the next path - Profit growth. To do this - you cut trim costs. There are good ways and bad ways to do this. Most companies have some fat they can trim…some have a lot of fat they can trim. Other companies choose not to trim fat, but to start cutting corners… “We can use this manufacturer to make this product at a greatly reduced cost…but the quality with degrade a little”. Keep making decisions like that and you have Sears as it is now. And to exacerbate the problem further…Have a hedge-fund manager as it’s CEO/President.
I think Sears in on a Spiral it can’t recover from. Maybe 10 years ago it had a chance…but not now…Especially with the current CEO/President who hasn’t a clue how to build a business.
Yeah I have to agree with Mike. The pressure on growth seems to me not the best for the company in the long run. Sure everyone wants a little growth and profits and its sure better than losing money or market share, but taken to its illogical total conclusion, eventually you would be the only company around in that market. Then what? Downhill slide or some whippersnapper start-up starts taking pot shots at you and now you are losing.
I guess I’m still thinking about Sunday’s sermon and the camel and the eye of the needle. Doesn’t make sense in the long term. If everyone sold everything they had, there would be no market, plus there would be no one left with any assets to really help someone in need. Works in the micro economic sense but not in the macro economic sense.
So at any rate, yeah, continual steady sales with a few ups and downs here and there, and long term investment in plant and equipment and people makes a lot more sense.
I agree with you on all points except that their CEO hasn’t got a clue. I am of the opinion that he is carrying out a long-term plan that he hatched quite a few years ago.
IMHO, he has been planning for several years to do a gradual sell-off/shutdown of the company until it no longer exists. The lives of thousands of Sears employees will be worsened, and many customers will miss the Sears that they remember from the Good Old Days, and the CEO will glide away with his Golden Parachute.
@MikeInNH. I agree with your comments about Sears lack of growth. This is the regression effect. Sears, at one time, was the biggest retailer in the world. Sears had hit the ceiling. It couldn’t grow any more.
I have often had to explain to good students who have been doing superior work and then slip a little on a test. Their previous test scores were so high that they couldn’t get any higher.
If my salary had been based on students’ improvement, I would want a class of low achievers. I wouldn’t have to do much for these students to have them make gains. On the other hand, there isn’t much gain a class of high achievers can make. Wall Street doesn’t understand the regression effect.
He knows exactly wat he’s doing. He sold off the product lines he doesn’t want and is trying to sell the Kenmore appliances to himself. After the major product lines are sold, he can start shutting down the rest of the stores.
I also understand he was buying a lot of the properties from the company to fund its operation. That way he has the only thing worth anything once the rest is gone… REAL ESTATE! The problem with that is there are so many old empty retail store buildings around that this plan may have backfired on him. It seems the economy is booming and that many empty buildings are now being turned into something else these days so maybe that isn’t so bad for him.
I have never had much luck at pawn shops but don’t spend a lot of time in them either. I am a gun guy and always found that they had lots of beat up shotguns for like $10 less than you could buy them new for at Wal-Mart. The same was the case with tools. I went into a pawn and gun place and saw an air compressor that caught my eye. It was just a basic pancake model and the Lowes Kobalt brand for $60. It had some use on it and I thought that was a little high. I happened to be in Lowes shortly after and it was always a nice low price of $59.99. So they want new prices for used and beatup tools as well.
That seems to be a common issue with any secondhand place around here. They want more than new prices but it seems that it must work because they keep doing it. My GF likes an antique mall around here. It is basically a flea market type deal where people rent booths. I was looking at a Harbor Freight torque wrench. I had recently bought the same one but this one had lots of use and you could tell it hadn’t been treated nicely. They wanted $25. The guy running that booth happened to be there and acted like this was a great deal. I told him I was pretty sure this one was 19.99 at Harbor Freight. He said no so I looked it up on my phone and I was correct. He was then like, “Well there isn’t a Harbor Freight very close to here.” I said “You are right but I frequently have jobs where I travel to locations near a Harbor Freight and just wait until then.” I also let him know that I happened to have a job lined up the next day that was only a few blocks from a Harbor Freight. He didn’t have a lot to say.
I bought some kayaks this summer. I was actually involved in the purchase of 3 and bought 2 myself. I looked online each time and the prices were always higher for used ones than for new, often by quite a lot. So it made more sense just to buy new. I guess people keep selling these as I see stuff like $125 kayaks from Wal-Mart listed for $400 each. Then when I try to list something at a more reasonable price, people offer scrap value, if that, for it. This is nuts if you ask me.
As for pawn shops, I think they make all their money on loans. They either still sell these items to people who are dumb enough to use a pawn loan or don’t really care about selling them if you ask me. I would be concerned that people are selling stolen tools because yes, remember these tools should be putting food on their table. As for the cheap shotguns, they seem to be a dime a dozen and someone might sell one to pay the light bill or make it to the next paycheck. Drugs are a huge problem around here so pawning stuff for dope is a pretty good assumption on most things.
It is funny someone mentions buying a Weber grill at Lowes. I had just that experience a few months back and it could have been an SNL skit. It was ordered online for store pickup and I had the paperwork printed out. I get there and they are like “Well, the computer says we don’t have any in stock.” The order clearly showed it was available for pickup. I went back to the grill area and there were 9 of my exact same model on the shelf. I go to the front and they are like “The floor model isn’t for sale.” I told them there were 9 in the boxes and they tell me I must have the wrong model such as a different color. I went back again and they were the EXACT same model and color. I finally dragged someone back there and they kept telling me I was wrong until they saw 9 of them sitting there in boxes. Their brain locked up and they didn’t know what to do. They just stood there like their brain had gotten a “blue screen of death” in computer speak. They are then like “But the computer says…” I was like “I don’t care what the computer says, YOU HAVE THEM IN STOCK!” I wasted like an hour and a half dealing with these human robots.
So, the order got cancelled and the store manager calls, wondering why. He said this wasn’t acceptable and would do his best to make it right if I reordered. I would have had to drive 30+ miles to the nearest Lowes besides this one and might not have had better luck. I also thought about driving to Home Depot but they were all 100 miles away. Anyway, I reordered.
I print the paper and go in. The first thing out of their mouth is “But the computer says…” I was like “I don’t care what the computer says. This is the order that got cancelled before. Get me a manager.” They got me an assistant manager who was very aware of the situation. I guess the main store manager wasn’t happy about this. Anyway, he calls someone and then walks over to a box on a rolling cart that was sitting up front only a few feet from him and says “This is your grill. It was rolled upfront already.”
Lowes seems to have stepped it up with Menards being in town now but still has some work to do. They told me they didn’t have any cardboard in the store that I could have to serve to protect my purchase. I just made a phone call and was greeted with plenty of cardboard. That was one of the people just not wanting to do their job.
Menards seems like it is 3x the size of Lowes. It also has a huge outdoor warehouse/shed where you can just go load up stuff from the lumber yard. The funny thing is that Menards has things that Lowes doesn’t and Lowes has things that Menards doesn’t so I will still have to go to both.
SK Tools have undergone an ownership change and have a new manufacturing facility in Colorado. Made in the US with US made steel.
Everything in life it seems, mimics nature. A business is subject to the same pressure as a living organism- you either grow and change or you die. There is no business that makes sense long term to stagnate and just turn a mediocre profit. That is a recipe for eventual death. Why? because there will always be another organism that comes along to try and eat your lunch. They are more hungry than you and can afford to undercut you to steal market share. Then starts the death spiral and race to the basement on profits… you must keep growing to fuel investment to stay ahead of the competition. A stagnant business is just waiting to die…