I have been lurking on this thread but feel compelled to pitch in my 2
cents. I worked for Stanley Tools (Mechanics Tools Division) prior to my
present employer and know a little about the brands and who is behind some
of them.
First, Craftsman mechanics tools (sockets, ratchets, wrenches, etc) are
made by Danaher (http://www.danaher.com/html/ourbusiness/group.asp?Plt=4).
Up until about 1995, they were made by Stanley Tools (my former company)
but Stanley lost the Craftsman business to Danaher over price. If you
bought Craftsman prior to about 1995, there were made by Stanley. After
1995, they were made by Danaher. There are only a small handful of
mechanics tool makers in the world and they make many brands. Stanley
makes Stanley brand (of course), Husky (Home Depot), MAC tools, and Proto
(very expensive, high end professional tools for machinists and guys that
work on factory equipment, airplanes, etc), and many of the auto parts
store labels. Danaher, makes Craftsman (just the mechanics tools),
Armstrong, K-D, Matco, Allen, etc. Snap-On (at least when I was still in
the tool business a few years ago) was both a brand and manufacturer (like
Stanley). For all I know, they may have been sold since.
Craftsman is a marketing brand. That's all. The Craftsman tools that
your dad had while you were growing up were made by a completely different
company than who makes them now. In fact, the manufacturer of Craftsman
has probably changed several times in the last 20 years. They throw the
contract out for bids periodically and if someone underbids, well, there
is your new Craftsman manufacturer. All of the retail companies do this.
Stanley lost Lowes' Kobalt to S-K also over price. One other thing: The
lifetime warranty is common with most branded tool sellers since the mid
nineties. Did you know that Home Depot does the same thing with Husky?
I've been told that Lowes does the same with Kobalt. A number of them do.
But people still talk about Sears and their warranty like it is rare.
Craftsman is simply a marketing brand. Hammers made by one company, saws
by another, wrenches by another, etc. If another manufacturer convinces
Sears that they can make them cheaper with comparable quality, then they
change manufacturers.
On the manufacturing itself, the quality of steel that is used and the
manufacturing processes (in my opinion) has improved greatly over the last
couple of decades. Steel processing technology has come a LONG way. They
now use processes that were unheard of 20 years ago such as cold-forming
for making sockets, etc. I'm not an engineer, but I was told that
cold-forming makes the sockets much stronger. This process was developed
by Stanley (actually by a company called NHT which was owned by a
Taiwanese group that Stanley purchased just to get this process) about ten
or fifteen years ago.
In the future, you will see more and more offshore production (Asia) of
tools but the quality will be as good if not better than the tools our
fathers used. The "made in USA" is simply a marketing angle these days.
When I was at Stanley, the mechanics tools from Stanley's Taiwan factory
were testing to as-good or better quality specs than the ones made in Ohio
and Texas. I personally still prefer "made in USA" tools from a nostalgia
stand point plus the illusion that I am supporting American workers, but
if you take the emotion out of it, the higher end tools from offshore
tested just as good in the destruct testing as the ones made in the USA.
Sure, there are a lot of manufacturers in Asia that make cheap tools also.
But there are some factories scattered around the world that make very
high quality steel and tools. Most of those factories are owned by the
large US tool companies like Danaher and Stanley. Some day in the
not-too-distant future, the realities of price competition and margin
erosion will drive brands like Craftsman to quietly drop the "made in USA"
marketing and start putting Taiwanese made tools on the shelf. You will
probably never notice it.
Sorry for the long thread. I hope this doesn't confuse things further.
;-)
Greg Hutmacher
Date: Thu, 5 Jun 2003 14:58:36 -0700 (PDT)
From: "David Breneman" <idcb@airborne.com>
Subject: Re: Cheap Tools
Chuck Renner SEZ -
> Given that Craftsman aren't the very best out there, their warranty does
> come into play. Since I don't use a given tool enough to justify
> stepping up to the Snap-On, S-K, etc. level, Craftsman has to work for
> me. How easy/difficult is it to get warranties handled by Easco? The
> convenience of dropping your pile of broken stuff on the counter at
> Sears is pretty nice.
The Easco dealer in my area (Western Washington) is Tacoma Screw
Products. I actually worked there about 10 years ago (I was their
IS department). It worked the same way. The customer brought in
the tool, and it was exchanged. That "Sears equivalent" policy
was a big selling point, especially since Easco was a low-profile
brand that many people hadn't heard of. TSP also sold Proto hand
tools, but they were a lot more expensive. Most of that cost
seemed to be reflected in a higher degree of finish (ie, more
polished as opposed to as-cast surfaces) but the parts of the
tool that did the job were comparable. Is it worth $8 more to
get a 1/2" combination wrench with a polished handle?
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