Heh heh. I bought my first volt meter at the Army Signal School store on campus. I think I paid $10 for it in 1970. Somehow it disappeared so I bought a Radio Shack version. Actually seemed like the same thing. Still have that but I bought a digital one too at some roving tool truck. Prolly same as HF but hey works for me. Nobody pays me for what I do.
Thinking of lawn mowers though, it dawned on me today that I have had 4 mowers since 1976. The first was a pos AMF that didn’t last long. Replaced it with a Toro. Still have it but don’t ever use it and need to get rid of it. Then I bought a used MTD rider and traded that for a new one in 1996. So still have #2 and #4. I change oil though ahead of schedule.
@bing. For testing batteries, I had a gadget that was a little statue of W.C. Fields for testing AAA, AA, C and D cells. It had two leads to touch to the battery being tested. There was a red LED for W.C. Fields’ nose. If the nose lit when the leads were touched to the battery, the battery was good. That was all the accuracy I needed in testing batteries.
I had an EICO vacuum tube voltmeter that I bought second hand. I finally gave it away and have a digital voltmeter that serves my purposes. I think it is a Harbor Freight special.
I have had three push mowers since 1988 and still have two of them. I have an 18" Toro push mower I bought in 1988. It runs well, but has a Tecumseh engine which is no longer made. The other parts are still available. I have replaced the handle twice. I bought a Homelite Jacobsen push mower in 1992. It is strictly a mulching mower with two blades–a longer blade with a perpendicular shorter blade. It does a wonderful job of mulching grass and leaves. Unfortunately, parts are no longer available. The handle broke so I repaired it with a piece of electrical conduit. The cable broke for the safety control, so I wired it back at the engine. The engine got to the point where it burned so much oil that I was fogging for mosquitoes when I mowed. I switched it to synthetic oil and it dried up the oil consumption. For an experiment, I bought a Black and Decker battery mower from a friend who decided to hire a company to mow her yard. I put new batteries in the mower at a cost of $65. The new batteries lasted only two seasons. I installed another set of new batteries at the beginning of last year. I mowed for 5 minutes and the mower stopped. I found that the controller board was bad. The part is no longer made. I could have bypassed the board with a switch, but I decided I could buy a lot of gasoline for having to replace the batteries every two years, so I donated the mower to Goodwill. The batteries were sealed lead acid batteries. The new battery powered mowers use lithium ion batteries which are probably better.
I did buy a Harbor Freight tester for live circuits which I found quite handy. About a year ago, I thought I had lost it. Last week I pulled what I thought was a pen out of a cup in my desk I use to hold pens and pencils. When I started to write a check and thought the pen was dried up, I found I was trying to write with my long lost circuit tester.
Remember the now discontinued “Craftsman Professional” line of tools
Those wrenches were made in USA and they were pretty good, in my opinion. Not as good as Matco or Snap-On, but solid tools.
Good luck finding made in USA Craftsman tools nowadays. Some of their hammers are still made in USA, but their wrenches and sockets moved to “off shore” production a few years ago. I’m not sure about their pliers
The old made in USA Craftsman impact sockets were very sturdy and a fantastic bargain, as well, if you got them on sale.
Alas, those days are long gone, as almost no Craftsman tools are made in USA nowadays, and Sears is circling the drain. I wouldn’t be surprised if the company goes under this year. The economic fallout from the virus may finish them off
I have not been buying any new Craftsman tools in many years. I retired from trucking and started collecting my pension 25 years ago. Suddenly a social life was possible, Sunday dinners at our house with children and grandchildren and then great grandchildren, dinners with friends and regular weekend activities were possible, even regular church attendance. One of the weekend activities became going to antique car shows.
This was a time when small auto parts stores and hardware stores were going out of business en mass due to the big box stores, and then later ,online competition.
Almost all old car shows had vendors or flea markets with used or even new tools For 25 cents to $2. Some guts did not even have tables just blankets soread on the ground with everything on the blanket for a buck. A lot of K-D specialty tools still in the packagethat had been $20 to $40 each, I loaded up with tools I never would have purchased except for immediate need. I replaced every missing or damager or poor quality tool I had, and any replacement I have needed since.
Craftsman used to go for a premium because everyone knew no matter what shape, you could get them replaced with no questions asked. Now if I break a Craftsman tool, I will just throw it out, it s not worth a trip to the store. I doubt if they will reopen any Sears stores remaining except for going out of business sales.
Heh heh. A couple days ago I was desperately looking for what I did with a tool or something. And now I’ll be danged if I can remember what I was looking for so don’t know if I found it or not. Might have been the pickle fork trying to get the flywheel off the lawn mower. I know I have that now so maybe I did find it, but hard to say what day it is any more. I’ve succumbed to crossing days off the calendar just to keep track.
Yes I would have to agree that to the occasional wrench spinner some of the HF boxes may look shiny and nice and may indeed serve their purposes perfectly well. But like @TwinTurbo mentions…wait till you load it up right n proper and give it a decade.
The cost of those high end boxes can make your eyes water and are not for the non pro… But Man Alive, the “action” on those Pro Box drawers is sooo damn nice…regardless of the weight involved. Its something to behold and I never ceased to marvel at it.
I can’t seem to stop the little smile on my face whenever I pull out a drawer that actually rolls itself out toward you when fully loaded…all it needed was to be unlocked and gently set into motion.
Its a little bit of joy…it ain’t free…but one can still rejoice.
Yes, I’m a simple man and possibly a Simpleton…but I’m OK with this.
Agree with that. The stuff is made to look exactly like quality items. Probably reverse engineered from quality parts, but the problem is you never know the quality of the casting, the metal composition, heat treating and on and on. I talked about Chinese bolts before being used in bridges that were not properly heat treated because it would wear the machine tools too quickly. Hard to gain a reputation back once it is lost but they aren’t even trying, just controlling the narrative. OTOH, they’ll give you a new one if you bring it back. I think an heir could bring it back if the original owner was killed.
Chinese oil pumping units became really popular in the oil fields because they were cheap. Operators found out they had to replace many of the nuts and bolts holding it together with quality ones.
I’m surprised. If the people that bought the cheap pumps continued to buy them, it would look like they were cheaper after upgrading. That assumes they did a cost analysis after upgrading the pumps.
All this talk about quality has me thinking… It has me thinking about being screwed over, not by the mfg’s overseas, but by someone else far closer geographically.
Regulars here have read more than a few of my rants regarding inferior metallurgy in regard to new parts and or tools and various items. How things look the business and yet are not… I still think some are made from dog poop painted to look like metal but i cannot prove it as of yet…
As much as I love to rant about these things… I’m taking a brief pause because I like to think that I am somewhat an enlightened individual, so I try to flip the script of logic sometimes to see if it holds water.
Lets use our favorite country to complain about …and ask ourselves… Are “they over there” incapable of producing the metals, fasteners, machines or parts needed in high quality tools and infrastructure? (the “metal making recipe’s” are a known quantity…they aren’t exactly secret anymore) OR… are they making exactly what they are asked to make and ship over here? At the price point they were given to make whatever item?
I mean…they build bridges, ships, cranes, engines and dams over in China… I get the feeling that, they might keep the high quality items on their home turf…and send the garbage overseas…because that is what the American Board of Trustees asked for…at the price they agreed to pay and not a penny more.
Something is telling me the answer is that they are not as incompetent or reckless as some tools or part quality would suggest…
Perhaps the recklessness sits squarely on our shores…with the American Businessmen who are the impetus for such shoddy quality and are profiting from the look alike products… Businessmen who care nothing for the tradesman and the quality tools or items they want to be available to them and that they need to meet certain quality standards etc.
Take the opportunity to comment… as we rarely flip the script like this. Its something to ponder I think.
I personally think this is accurate, and given Capitalism’s inherent desire to maximize profits along with the general person trying to find the cheapest deal, there’s a reason why the moniker Made in China equates to crap in the United States.
Strange because normally, the heat treating for hardening is performed after all the machining is done. I have found cheap hardware that was softer than it should have been, they just skipped the hardening process to reduce their cost to manufacture. I bought some cheap tools once, late at night while on the road. The screwdrivers just twisted and broke before the screws came loose. No hardening done at all, they were completely useless.
There’s no excuse for that happening to critical infrastructure projects. We always do 100% first article inspection and subsequent AQL of critical parts by batch received. Deficiencies like this are caught by those inspection processes…
Back up the truck. I don’t consider all the Harbor Freight tools I purchase to be garbage. I use some almost daily here in Florida. Many work just fine and are pretty durable for non-professional purposes.
I don’t exactly enjoy buying Harbor Freight tools, from the standpoint of not “buying American,” but they are a fraction of the cost of American made tools and possibly as good, quality wise, (or exactly the same tools) in many instances and the warranty…
Ever get the free or $1 screw driver with reversible bits (2 slotted/2 Phillips)? Tell me they aren’t worth every penny of the price? I haven’t stripped, twisted, or had one fail for home handyman work and I’ve got several in convenient spots.
Folks go on “Shark Tank” TV show and tell the panel they are going to sell an innovative product and have it made in the U.S. so it’s 100% Made in America. A panel member, who’s a candidate for supplying start-up money, usually asks, “What’s your cost and profit per unit?” When they get the answer they tell the contestant that they’re nuts and they need to have the product manufactured in China, and forget about “American made”, if they want success!
I believe that the problem isn’t necessarily that quality American made tools are too expensive. The problem is that half way decent tools from China are too cheap.
I will and do pay more for U.S., home state, and “locally made” products. Often, the problem is determining which products those are. Distributed from Bentonville, AR doesn’t exactly explain that.
For instance, I exclusively buy Florida’s Natural orange juice because it’s labeled as made with %100 Florida oranges, grown in Florida by Florida farmers and has a on it! Perhaps it costs a little more. I don’t check and I don’t care.
So, step up American businesses, brag up American quality and American made. Put a on it! Tell me exactly where it’s made. I’ll pay more, within reason. Some companies already do this and they get my business.
I think that it’s time to require all products sold in the U.S. to tell where they originate, where raw materials are from, and where they’ve been. Buying “wild caught U.S. fish” and finding out it went to China for processing just doesn’t cut it. Or finding out after an epidemic hits us that we depend on China for over 90% of our antibiotics is not acceptable.
To date I dont think that I have thought about that in quite that way before…
Dont get me wrong… I have defended HF tools before and still do now as I have more than a few scattered around . They do have a place and a purpose and some will surprise you durability wise.
on it! Perhaps it costs a little more. I don’t check and I don’t care.
on it! Tell me exactly where it’s made. I’ll pay more, within reason. Some companies already do this and they get my business.