I am posting this under repairs because I need some advice from mechanics.
My son has got a new job where he has to buy tools, including socket sets and wrenches.
Since I am 71 and not doing much work that calls for this, I may give him my old Craftsman stuff.
So there are two questions:
Is there a decent brand of cheap to medium stuff I could buy for myself, should I decide to do so? What would that be? At my age I am not all that strong so I am not likely to break a socket.
Should I get him a tool bag or box to carry all this stuff in? Any particular type recommended?
As @texases points outā¦we need to know the job, and what variety of tools will he be using.
If he will be working in a shop setting and only needs a set of sockets, wrenches, and screwdriversā¦then a small bottom roller cabinet would work good. With a roller cabinet he would be able to expand and get a top chest if needed in the future. In the mean time he could use the top of the roller cabinet as a bench, or a place to stow his personal thingsā¦coat, hat, boom box, lunch, etcā¦
I would have said to start with a top box, but we donāt know if he will have a bench to put it on,
If he will be working job sites, ie: construction and needs a variety of tools and something to carry them inā¦there are some real nice tool boxes that come with their own dolley to move them around the job site.
Iāve never wanted one of these, but for job sites I see them all the time.
I think the boxes can be stacked on the dolley and locked in place.
As far as tools for yourselfā¦with only light jobs in your futureā¦harbor freight has very cheap prices and their tools will hold up for what you need.
Any discount tool store, such as Harbor Freight or (in my neighborhood) R&R Wholesalers, would be great for you. They offer perfectly good tools for home use of a very wide variety at good prices. Donāt get hung up on the tool brand. Sure, a Snap-On will last a professional mechanic 60 years of daily hard use, but do you really need that?
Ask him. Heāll know whatāll work best for his application.
Mechanics use tool chests. It allows them to keep their tools under lock & key, keep them well organized, and fi they leave they generally lift the entire chest (with a hoist or forklift) up onto a pickup, moving everything at once. Other jobs may require that he be able to bring the tools on-site. When I was in avionics we had canvas toolbags to carry what we needed to the aircraft, and steel toolboxes to put everything in at the end of the day.
For you? Theyāre probably fine. I will note, my in-laws got me a Craftsman 58 piece kit for Christmas last year and it got me through a water pump and water outlet job on my Focus over the past 2 days with no problems from the tools (maybe Iāll post about this āfunā job later). I know Craftsman quality is not nearly what it was years ago, but my kit worked just fine for me.
Well, they gave him a list of tools to buy, but they didnāt say whether the socket set should be 1/2 drive or what and they didnāt say if the sockets and wrenches should be English or metric. So, we are muddling thru. Got a phone call in to clarify.
Anyway, I agree with pyro that Walmart tools would be great for home use. They sell Stanley, Black & Decker, and other āname brandsā whose tools Iāve been using for years. Craftsman you can buy at Ace Hardware and other stores nowā¦ Sears sold the division. Walmart will probably be selling Craftsman within a year or two also.
Wait ātil yearās end and you might even be able to get some good deals in Searsā āgoing out of business saleāā¦
That could easily happen. Sears sold Craftsman to Stanley Black and Decker, and SBD sells the through chains like Ace Hardware, and now Lowes. Sears sells Craftsman tools, but they donāt own the brand anymore. Kenmore is up for sale, too. One positive for Sears is that the auto centers have a deal with Amazon to mount tires people buy from Amazon.
Nobody thinks itās funny. But itās reality, and it needs to be accepted. Sears has had many decades of success, but everything including businesses have a life cycle. Eddie Lambert, the Sears/KMart Holding CEO said himself publically that heās not sure Sears will make it to the end of the year.
The sad thing is that Sears built its success on being able to reach the nationās rural areas, which comprised much of the nationās huge Midwest, areas that had no access to department stores, with a wide range of products through their catalog, and yet the emergence of the internet, which should have been a huge asset to the Sears model, became part of its undoing rather than its savior. Sears simply did not adapt well to the changes.
Would it not make more sense to post the tool list instead of just asking about tools. And you donāt know just what his job is , seems like that would have been at the start of the conversation.
I used to buy mostly Craftsman hand tools at Sears. One reason is b/c of the lifetime guarantee , if one got rounded over in use, which did happen once in a while, Sears would replace it with a new one, gratis. Sears was a little on the expensive side, but every once in a while theyād have a 50% sale, so thatās when Iād buy tools usually. But all the Sears nearby closed, so now I usually buy hand tools at Harbor Freight. Pittsburg I think is their brand for hand tools. So far as I can tell the Pittsburg hand tools are as good as the Craftsman. At least for everyday diyāer around home kind of use. I donāt know what the warranty policy is on the Pittsburg though.
