Hand tool brand name Poll

**cwsmith** · 01-08-2017, 12:36 PM

I picked Craftsman and Pittsburg. I know that they are sort of on opposite ends of the spectrum, but those are my current choices for "go to", if I need something. I own more Craftsman than probably anything else, because up to a few years ago it was the most available. All of my socket sets, wrenches, punches, and similar tools are from Sears as are most all of my older (1960's thru 90's) power tools. (It was a family thing.) I do have a Craftsman block plane is decent, though rather ancient at this point in time.

However, for today HF is almost first choice with its wide variety, great customer service, and availability. Often not great quality, but then I don't need top of the line stuff.

Stanley, well what can I say... years ago they were great for some things, but I think their quality has fallen off, still I own a few Stanley products and like them. My very first tool purchases were a Stanley 2 ft aluminum level, a hammer and some nail sets. I think I was 15 or 16 then and they are still with me today and in great shape. I also have an old 1940's #3 Bailey plane and those folding work benches they had out a few years ago. Sadly they only had the latter on the market a couple of years.

I own a couple of Husky tools, but they are sort of 'clunky' and I don't use them much at all. I bought a Kobalt #4 hand plane last summer. Actually it's really not bad, but with either of he big box stores, I don't enjoy shopping there.

The last four brands, SK, Snap-on, MAC, and Proto, I understand have terrific reputations. However, they just don't fall into an available path for purchase. I've never seen them retail, though I have seen the occasional truck for Proto and I think Snap-on.

No lifetime warranty, but most of my quality woodworking hand tools are from Lee-Valley with a variety of brands Mostly sharpening tools, Narex chisels, and a few small things from Veritas.

CWS

**mpc** · 01-08-2017, 03:25 PM

I voted Craftsman and Sanp-on. I have a fair bit of Craftsman mechanics tools; when I needed socket wrenches, open-end wrenches, etc. that was my go-to brand for many years. Ever since the K-Mart-ization of Sears though I don't shop there much any more. The Craftsman hand tools still seem good but I already have most everything I could need. Their new low-cost brands looked cheesy to me and I wonder how many long-time customers figured everything at Sears was going that way and that the Craftsman brand would get diluted. Only once have I needed the lifetime guarantee and the guys in the store didn't question anything - we just walked over to the display racks and grabbed the current version of that item (beefy screwdriver). My old/busted one got tossed into a bin or something under the cash register. Took all of two minutes.

I don't have much Snap-on stuff but I am well aware of their reputation - which is how the survey was worded. A friend of mine used to work at Dan Gurney's All American Racers shop and I visited the shop fairly often myself... when the Snap-On truck came by he said everybody but the secretary ran out to the truck. Those guys lived and breathed Snap-On.

I have a fair bit of HF Pittsburgh stuff too. One swap-out, again no problem. So the guarantee part works fine. The precision of some of the tools - like the box end wrenches I have - isn't the best. A 15mm wrench for example seems to be more like 15.3 to 15.5mm in actual size. It'll remove 15mm nuts but it has a lot more slop in feel compared to my Craftsman equivalents. My concern though - and why I didn't vote Pitt in the survey - is that HF routinely rotates their stock and a lifetime guarantee item might not have a close match for replacement.

Husky and Cobalt - not much direct experience with them. I already have Craftsman stuff for anything they'd offer other than the Husky reversible screwdriver which I do like - I went back and grabbed a couple more to have one in the shop and two inside the house. SK and MAC tools I'm aware of but again no direct experience nor second-hand experience like my Snap-On story. Proto? Never heard of that one!

For woodworking hand tools I've pretty much settled on Lie-Nielson for hand planes, small hand saws, and probably for most of my new chisels. Their hand planes simply work well, needing very little out-of-the-box fettling. I have two of Woodcraft's house brand hand planes. The basic bench plane works fine but it took a couple of hours to get it tuned. The chisel plane has been a flop. I've had good luck with antique Stanley and Record planes - I know they'll need more fettling time given their age but once tuned they've held up nicely and work well. The new Stanley planes? I'm not too impressed by what I've seen, including the current "Sweetheart" ones trying to bring back the fame of the originals. After examining one in a store, and seeing how not-flat the sole was, I just shook my head and wrote off their current offerings. I'll pay a little more for the Lie-Nielsons. I tried one of Lie-Nielson's dovetail saws at one of their traveling shows and found it so much nicer than what I'd already had... I bought it on the spot and just yesterday I was eyeballing the catalog for more of their hand saws. I picked up a couple mortise chisels at that show too and they're darn nice. I also like the fact that Lie-Nielson DOES those traveling shows. it's nice to be able to really test stuff and have experts there for questions or to show you the right way to do things. I wish they could have the shows more frequently to be honest.

mpc

**LCHIEN** · 01-08-2017, 10:40 PM

Well, its still early, but maybe this is why Stanley bought Craftsman's name for $900 million:
Craftsman 36%, Stanley, 0%

**LCHIEN** · 01-09-2017, 05:02 AM

[QUOTE=mpc;n828848...I have a fair bit of HF Pittsburgh stuff too. One swap-out, again no problem. So the guarantee part works fine. The precision of some of the tools - like the box end wrenches I have - isn't the best. A 15mm wrench for example seems to be more like 15.3 to 15.5mm in actual size. It'll remove 15mm nuts but it has a lot more slop in feel compared to my Craftsman equivalents. My concern though - and why I didn't vote Pitt in the survey - is that HF routinely rotates their stock and a lifetime guarantee item might not have a close match for replacement.

...

mpc[/QUOTE]

I wonder how HF's lifetime replacement works. Craftsman tools in sets are also sold individually and have the actual part numbers on them... handtools have long lives. I returned a SK tool that I got 45 years ago as defective and the replacement part had the same number stamped on it, almost the same cosmetically except for a line around the adapter. HF does not sell individual wrenches, but only sets. I wonder what they do when you bring back a single broken tool... do they give you a whole set? Break the set and sell the rest as open box/missing parts?

**mpc** · 01-09-2017, 12:48 PM

Originally posted by LCHIEN

I wonder how HF's lifetime replacement works. Craftsman tools in sets are also sold individually and have the actual part numbers on them... handtools have long lives. I returned a SK tool that I got 45 years ago as defective and the replacement part had the same number stamped on it, almost the same cosmetically except for a line around the adapter. HF does not sell individual wrenches, but only sets. I wonder what they do when you bring back a single broken tool... do they give you a whole set? Break the set and sell the rest as open box/missing parts?

In my case, it was a single item from a set that needed replacing. One clerk wasn't sure what to do, the store manager of the week told him to open a new set and pull out that item. I had the rest of my set in the car - ready to swap the whole thing - but nope, they just wanted to swap the one item. I never checked to see if the rest of that new set ended up on the discount rack.

For the Craftsman item, it was a beefy screwdriver - one of the old square-shanked monsters that folks often use as a pry-bar. (no, that's not how I busted mine!). That part number no longer existed, Sears swapped it with the nearest equivalent which was still a large screwdriver but no longer square-shanked. It did have a hex-nut area at the top of the shank to attach a wrench when ridiculous torque is needed.

mpc

**leehljp** · 01-09-2017, 02:11 PM

First: How do you comment under someone else's comment, such as post #6 that has Loring's responses to mpc? I can't figure out how to do that.

Back on topic: I am surprised that Stanley has so few responses. I used to regard them highly back in the 60's and even 70's. I went on a tour of a Stanley factory back in the late 80's in either NC or SC, can't remember which, and received a couple of screw drivers. Still, I am not really impressed with Stanley today.

**Pappy** · 01-09-2017, 05:51 PM

Most of my mechanic type tools are Craftsman. Problem with replacing tem is distance. Closest Sears is either San Antonio or Austin and since I retired I don't get to Austin often. I have a Husky socket set and a few Kobalt tools. Same 'no questions' asked replacement policy with Home Depot and Lowes being close by to almost anywhere I happen to be. Probably will lean more toward Lowes' Kobalt tools in the future because they are in town and the tool line is more extensive than Husky.

I agree with Hank that the quality of Stanley tools is nowhere near what is once was. Mac and Snap On seem to be the choice of most pros, mainly because of the dealer trucks coming to them at the shop. That and the cost make them less attractive to the rest of us.

**LinuxRandal** · 01-10-2017, 12:15 AM

Not sure how to vote, as I see things quite a bit different.
First, I have some Husky tools, that go back to when my grandfather had a garage, in the 1920's, long before Home Depot owned the name. That said I have a couple items that are Husky, and are made by Stanley and except for name, match some of their other brands they own/make, such as Mac, Proto, Stanley, etc. So when I see Stanley, as well as other "names" they make on the poll, I don't see it the same way as you all probably do.
I own lots of different brands, from Stanley, Mac, Husky, Craftsman, OTC, Kobalt, Armstrong, Wright, Gearwrench, KD, Wizard, Snap On, Matco, Pittsburg and quite a few more. Most of my Kobalt tools were made by JH WIlliams tool company, and in particular one thing, when in my hand, gets mistaken for Snap on (which is why I bought it, price verses benefit of what it is). I don't really buy on name, I buy on functionality, need, price, quality, and country of origin. (there are lots of tools that I mostly only see import) I have had several tools warrantied, from a Lisle mirror that was broken in the package, to Craftsman sockets that were misprinted and not the size they said.

**Black wallnut** · 01-10-2017, 12:07 PM

Interesting pool and topic. Early on I purchased mostly Craftsman. There are a couple of brands that are not in the list that I also have Blackhawk and New Britton (NAPA old house brand). During my years where I was turning wrenches on a regular basis for work, among other tasks, I changed to a mix of Snap-on and MAC. I'll now add Park Tools to the list of serious mechanics tools, although those outside of bike mechanics likely have not heard of them. In the poll I did not choose Craftsman in spite of owning a fair amount. These days I'll bite the bullet and buy Snap-on if I need a new tool that I don't already have unless it is for my bike then it is Park Tool.

That said the hand tools I'm even more likely to buy now will be good chisels on a one of basis.

**vaking** · 01-10-2017, 03:06 PM

I never cared for "lifetime warranty" on tools - I believe it is just a marketing gimmick.
Small mechanics tools (screwdrivers, wrenches) I would lose 10 times more often than brake. More complex/important tools (slip-joint pliers, adjustable wrenches and pliers) - if it slips - you can easily hurt yoursef. I care more about quality than warranty. I will always take a tool made by "Channellock" over one made by Harbor Freight even though the first does not have lifetime warranty and second does. Power tools usually don't have lifetime warranty. I have fair amount of Craftsman tools simply because I used to work near Sears visiting it during lunch to relax and often buying things on clearance and special sales. I don't recall ever using their lifetime warranty - I did not buy it for that. I believe a quality mechanics tool should last for years. If so - manufacturer can always charge a little more, invest the extra money and in few years it will compound to cover the cost of a replacement if you ever need it. So it boils down to a simple question - do you want to pay 10% extra upfront to cover lifetime warranty or not. There was a time in my previous life when I worked as mechanic and travelled a lot. I lost a lot of my tools in my travels and found many too. Given the record of losing vs braking- I would rather not pay extra as long tool is good quality.

**LCHIEN** · 01-10-2017, 05:30 PM

Quite frankly the Lifetime Warranty was a stroke of Genius.
Not sure if Craftsman was the first tool maker to offer this, but they made it famous - Lifetime Warranty, Satisfaction Guaranteed and Craftsman Hand tools all fall in the same phrase and are strongly associated.

And now every tool maker has had to offer the same to be taken seriously. Snap-on, MAC, Proto, and SK, suppliers to the professional mechanics sales channels, and Kobalt, Husky, yes, even Pittsburgh and Stanley have to do the same. Even Penncraft (JC Penney) and Powercraft (Wards) had to do the same.
I don't think the warranty costs them very much because frankly these kinds of tools - wrenches, socket sets, hardly ever break. unless seriously abused. As Alex said, you lose tools to loss and theft more often.

They do instill some loyalty as well. No questions asked, you feel like a king when you get your tool replaced for the smallest complaint.- even a spot of rust or using a drive extension as a punch or a socket retaining ball being too tight ( I've done the latter two).

**dbhost** · 01-10-2017, 06:27 PM

I might be unique here in that I actually own Stanley Proto hand tools, and I have earned the right to despise them. Worst ratchets ever. Nothing ergonomic about them... Sockets won't hold a fastener to save their lives, and those horrid screwdrivers. Ugh...

Oddly enough. I have a Stanley screwdriver set from Walmart that I couldn't pass up on price alone that I use all the time and really like. The more ergonomic handles make a huge difference for me.

I would love a set of pre WW2 Stanley Hand planes...

While I have had a few lemons from HF / Pittsburgh, the failure rate is actually quite low. (I have broken more Snap On sockets than HF sockets...).

Mac hand tools always leave me feeling like they are a wannabe that just can't get the job done at any price point. My first air ratchet back in the 90s was a Mac and it was a total piece of junk.

I have a few Husky and Kobalt pieces. They seem to be on par with Pittsburgh / HF while trying to compete at the price point of Craftsman Professional series tools... I have grabbed some onesie / twosie sockets when I manage to lose one from a set. My 1/4" Metric deep and shallow sockets are all Husky but that is because I needed them NOW and had a gift card and a coupon...

SK tools... Hmmm. Haven't seen their stuff in years. No clue where to buy it even if I wanted to...

**cwsmith** · 01-10-2017, 07:53 PM

I agree with a couple of comments regarding "Lifetime Warranty" in that first off, I don't buy a tool because of it, though I do have a couple of Ridgid "cordless", for that simple reason, free replacement of batteries under their exclusive "Limited lifetime Service Agreement". But hand tools? No, never purchased for that reason and in fact, I've never taken any of my Craftsman tools back for replacement.

Would I pay extra for a "lifetime warranty"? Probably not, as there are so many brands out there that offer that. Funny thing, and I've been saying this for years, is that what good does a lifetime warranty serve a customer if the particular brand that sold it, no longer exists? I have a fairly large set of screwdrivers like that. "Tempo" was the brand that my wife bought me one year as a "stocking stuffer". Her heart was in the right place, and they had "Lifetime Warranty", and even "Free Replacement", the latter I think being the attraction as she knows I used to loose them instead of having one break. And in fact that is what happened, I lost two of them (later to be found). So, I had kept the contact information and two years after the purchase, the company simply could not be found.... not a trace! Every time I see such Ads on TV for "replacement" or "Lifetime" it makes me wonder where that particular advertiser is going to be in two or three years. (Probably on that secret island where "Ginzu" knives fled.)

For the most part, I don't think the "Pittsburgh" brand to be very precise, but they work. I know their Tap and Die sets work, cost is low, but the precision is really sloppy.

When I was a kid helping my Dad, he loved Craftsman... seems like guys on the job site were too often throwing away a chipped hammer or fouled wrench.. He'd grab it and take it to the local Sears to get a free replacement. My lesson from that was simply that with some guys, the warranty doesn't matter much, if they're too lazy to take advantage of it. I read a lot of complaints over on the Ridgid forum of guys disgusted with the tool registration process. It only takes a few minutes, but that gets labelled as "jumping through hoops"... guess it just isn't worth the time. Probably "LIfetime Warranty" is the same way with many.

From my perspective, the couple of Craftsman tools that I broke, were from abuse, like using a screwdriver as a pry bar. Someone mentioned "rusty" Craftsman sockets, I surely have a few of those, as I left them for years in the very damp basement of my last home. Just surface rust though and I cleaned them up nicely. Frankly I never considered that Craftsman "lifetime warranty" would cover rust, but probably just as well that I didn't know that. I wouldn't want to be tempted, as I don't expect replacement when things are my fault.

CWS

**LinuxRandal** · 01-11-2017, 12:13 AM

I contacted Sears years ago, to get the warranty statement. Rust, fire, abuse, are not covered under the warranty, but people turn the stuff in under the satisfaction statement that used to be posted everywhere. Towards the end of when I was spending a decent amount of money in Sears, I was looking at specialty tools and needed to swap a non impact, swivel socket. They had dropped that size and I saw had also stopped carrying other tools that were frequently warrantied, such as hammers, tape measures and a few others that don't spring to mind. Most of those I had other brands, or were things I had or had found deals on (garage/estate sales) I missed a few tools that I really wanted to get, such as their HSS tap and die sets. I have a few loose carbon Craftsman and some Hansen, but my sets are currently Pittsburg, based on my main use being in Aluminum at the time. Now I have some old stock, SAE Kromedge ones coming for one project, based on the deal I found. Several loose taps I have are Greenlee, but I tend to run into too much competition to be able to afford that brand. I think I will eventually end up with a Metric Hansen set.
SK tools are sold by a couple local places, including Harry Epstein's, which some of you may have heard of (closeout tool store that also carries several other brands). Since they were bought out by Ideal Industries a few years ago, they seem to be having some growing pains. My favorite screwdrivers are the hard handles made by Willaims tools, that look like the old Snap on hard handles. My favorite metric combo wrenches are Wrightgrip. My SAE wrenches vary, some being a combo of boxed end and open end sets, as well as some Bonney tools ones. Sockets are a mix of all the brands mentioned and more. Ratchets are Craftsman, SK, Snap on, Wright, Mac and Husky.

Hand tool brand name Poll

Hand tool brand name Poll

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