What mechanic tools

ben70b

Member
Forever it was craftsman tools that were somewhat adorable
quality hand tools a shade tree mechanic could buy and feel
good about his investment. Is there any other American made
mechanics tools that are quality and affordable for the
weekend warriors?
 
I buy the Stanley tools for around home. Priced right and hold up well. Kobalt from Lowes are good also.
 
No. Those days are gone. Yes you can still buy quality American made tools but they are in no way affordable in the sense you're referring to. I would suggest going with Kobalt tools from Lowes in that price/quality range. Acquire the better American made stuff as you can afford it.

Craftsman tools never were commercial quality but they were good shade tree tools well worth the money. The Kobalt's are in the same catagory.
 
I posted about this a while back as I wanted to buy a "good " set of tools to keep in my truck for work so I didn't keep having to take them from my box at home. My home box has a Hodge podge of snap on , Mac, sk, Williams, and us made craftsman tools. I have since bought some kobalt tools from Lowe's and have been watching Craigslist for good deals. They seem decent for what I need. Latest purchase was a 12" crescent wrench made Irwin with the vise grip name on it. Not sure where it was made as it doesn't say on the wrench but it is every bit as heavy duty as my American made crescents. I like buying American but sometimes money doesn't allow that. Not all foreign tools are junk. Many people thought that about foreign cars and tractors. Some now make very good quality products. Like I said I am all for American made but simply sometimes I can't afford it.
 
I'm not sure that the Craftsman wrenches we bought 40+ years ago were as economical as we remember them. My first set of Craftsman wrenches -- a seven-piece set of combination wrenches, from 3/8 inch up to 3/4 inch, in a vinyl pouch -- was $9.99 in the store; my gross pay at the time, 1971, was $1.50 an hour. Today, most of us would consider a full day's take-home pay to be a really high price for a seven-piece set of combination wrenches.
 
As a self employed construction equipment mechanic, I've got ALOT of hand tools. Between my service truck, and the shop,I've got tools from all of the major name brand "professional" tools like MAC, and Snap-On, Matco, OTC, Kenmore, etc. I've also got stuff from older brands like Bonney, Barcalo, and others. Topping it all off I've also got tools from Craftsman, Northern Tool, NAPA and another of their brands Evercraft, Harbor Freight, Kobalt, and others I can't recall at the moment. I also have speciality tools from those same 'professional' name brands, as well as less well known (to many people) brands like Lisle, Kentool, etc

In every case, they all do the job asked of them just fine. The biggest thing is to look at the tool. If it looks really clunky, it's probably trying to make up for the cheap material with extra meat. The better quality tools usually tend to be a bit slimmer and typically have a better finish as well. In other words, you can usually see the quality, or lack thereof.

Ultimately nearly any tool that the maker cares to brand, be it Sears Craftsman, Kobalt from Lowes, Evercraft from NAPA, or whatever, will be OK, and any of these tools will work just fine for you.

Once you have the basic set of those, then you can move on to the 'professional' brands for any specialty tools you may need.

By the way, keep an eye on CL, local pawn shops, yard sales, etc. You'd be amazed at the quality tools you can buy, cheap, with just a bit of time spend looking for a deal. In fact, that's where the majority of the stuff I've got came from. The good thing about doing things this way is you can often find odd ball stuff that may not even be available anymore, yet will come in handy the one time it's needed. When that weird shaped wrench only cost 50 cents at a pawn shop, it's well worth spending the money, even if it sets in your box for years before seeing the one use it's just 'made for'.
 
Knowing how to buy is as important as what to buy. I won't buy Craftsman line wrenches but won't but a Snap-on hammer ball pien either. In my opinion ViceGrip is the only brand of locking plier.
 
The 13 piece set was $9.99 & went up to 1 1/16. Later they changed to 11 piece and stopped at 15/16. Don't remember seeing 7 piece sets until decades later when they stopped putting all the big wrenches in. Don't remember ever paying full price for them either. As was pointed out wages didn't leave that much so everyone waited for them to go on sale before buying sets.
 
Don't know how their quality is now, but the SK socket set my dad got me for my 16th birthday is still going strong 52 years later. I'm not a pro, but they've twisted a lot of bolts over the years, and the ratchet still works like new.

I still like Craftsman. Got a set of combination wrenches with a ratchet on the box end recently- very shiny, ratchets work smoothly. I'm going to do initial loosening and final tightening with conventional wrench, but the ratchet is handy for those LONG bolts.
 
Almost all the American companies that made tools made good tools. The trick is to find them at sales where you pay a lot less.
 
I checked an on-line copy of the 1971 Craftsman catalogue, and found that the smaller pouched set of C'man combination wrenches was six pieces, from 7/16 inch through 3/4 inch, and was priced at $7.89 (catalogue prices were less than the in-store prices). I must have purchased the 3/8 inch wrench separately and threw it into the pouch for storage; its catalog price was $1.19.

The same catlogue shows a Craftsman 10-piece combination wrench set in a pouch, selling for $15.99, and a 14-piece set in a vinyl tool roll priced at $29.99.

Sale prices were nice, but there wasn't always time enough to wait.
 
Boy there is a name I haven't thought of in a long time. Bonney. In the farm shop my dad got hold of a Bonney 5/8 drive set. To reverse direction you pop out the center of the ratchet and flip the handle over and snap it back in. I am betting it is fron WW II because it is in raw. No chrome.
 
I got a full set of long pattern, combination wrenches from 3/8" to 1" from a lady who was a friend of a friend, of my wife. The ladies long term boyfriend/fianc? had passed away and she was charged with getting rid of all of the stuff the family didn't jump in and take for themselves.

I made her an offer on a whole basket full of tools, and she was more than happy to take it just so the stuff went to someone who would use it -vs- his brothers who wanted, nor had, little to nothing to do with him until he was dead.
 
I've got some of just about every US branded tools as anybody; you can break anything if you get like a gorilla on it. 3 foot cheater pipes on 1/2" drive ratchets and sockets; that kind of abuse.

But used as intended, I think I've broken a couple of sockets and not much else.

Worse failure were the expensive Snap-on black handle screwdrivers that the handle just crumbled to dust.
 
Sweep up the screwdriver dust and find a Snap On truck, there warrantied.
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Funny how the article at the end said "In order to be competitive they had to move to China". Maybe I should have said old Vicegrips instead, because all I have are old Vicegrips. I have never broken any of them.
 
Amazing the amount of quality old tools one can find at auto swaps and even antique faires, the key is to look for the folks who buy storage units. I got a pair of the nice old SK hiproof boxes just packed with good quality stuff, half inch standard and deep, end wrenches, ballpeins, could barely pick them up, $60 for everything- folks sell those boxes as antiques. Went to the big monthly Alameda Point Antique Faire with mama, huge faire on the old runway, and found a big Kennedy machinist's box in one of the spaces, came from a storage buy, just crammed with end mills, cutting and drill bits, parallels, mics etc., for $200. Had to go rent a shopping cart to haul it out. Went to a car swap meet in Santa Rosa a few years ago, and an old farmer had a complete Snap-on 1" drive set, standard and deep sockets, extensions etc., for $100- price that at the truck if you want sticker shock. Lots of old SK, Wright, Proto, Blue Point, Craftsman etc, that old stuff is great quality. Also have a little collection of Plomb stuff, including a neat old Plomb rollaway, but while nicely made, they tend to be a bit soft, so they stay in the cupboard and look nice. The Plomb rollaway has a home next to my Bridgeport for mill & lathe stuff, with the big Kennedy box on top. Thought about laying a butcher block type top on it and using it for a cool kitchen island, but that got vetoed by the War Dept...
 
Like many others have said, affordable for a home/farm shop and USA made new tools no longer exist. The only USA made tools are the high end mechanics tools like Snap-on, Cornwell, etc.. The ones that come on the tool trucks.

I agree that Kobalt is a good brand, but Craftsman still makes a darn good wrench if you ask me. They aren't the same as the old USA made ones but they still have an excellent feel and finish, even better than Kobalt. Haven't broken one yet.
 

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