Who owns who??- Tool wise | Page 2 | GTAMotorcycle.com

Who owns who??- Tool wise

For corded tools I am a value for purpose guy, higher end where I can justify it, lower end for stuff that I rarely use but need for a specific purpose. I have Hilti, Bosch, Milwaukee, Makita, Dewalt and for rarely used tools Mastercraft, Princess Auto, Ryobi, B&D.... Brand is not generally a consideration, value for purpose 100%.

For cordless I am a battery ecosystem guy. This way it is one battery and charger form factor--so many advantages to this. For me it turned out to be Bosch 18v, not due to some deep technical dive just happened that way. I have Bosch to Dewalt and Dewalt to Bosch battery adapters, as a good buddy is a Dewalt ecosystem guy....
 
crankcall said:
Full disclosure: I sometimes do tool evaluation and testing for a global tool company ,( made in China) and Taiwan ) , NDA on the brand , you can get amazing tools and turds in every brand .
In cordless I pick a tool that fits my hand , has sensible ergos and switches that you can operate with no fatigue . If you a siding installer and your going to hold a screw gun for 6 hrs a day , better fit your hand regardless of Color.
Cordless will own jobs sites sooner than later , cords are a trip hazard, portable is everything , and the weight of 18v is where 9v was 15 yrs ago . Battery tech gets better every year , maybe faster.


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My occasional duty stuff is Ryobi and the workhorse is its cousin, Milwaukee. Kudos to Ryobi for making the 18 volt lithium compatible with the old Nicads.

Milwaukee changed their battery technology a decade or so back and if you needed a new battery you had to replace all your tools or go battery hunting.

When I got into the trades decades ago everything was corded and receptacles were scarce on jobsites. Octopuses were plugged into octopuses and when the breaker tripped it was "Who the &^%&%........" as every tool stopped and every trouble light went out.
 
timtune said:
I've been picking these out of the scrap bin at the ReStore for a while now. Ford, Austin and BSA so far. The little Honda toolkit pliers show up quite often too.
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A Scottish buddy clued me into the tool kits that came with many of the British cars way back when. They were so well concealed under the glove box few owners knew they were there. I pulled one out of an old Rover and it still had the paint touch up vial, dry as toast. BSW wrenches IICR.
 
GreyGhost said:
Even really expensive tools like festool have some design turds inside. Obviously the bean counters wanted apple level profit margins. They didn't try to make the best they could, there is some clear price-point stuff inside but they pretend their ^(&*^ doesn't stink.
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Makita used to have a grey line as well as the blue. IRC the greys had sleeve bearings and the blues had roller or ball.
 
sburns said:
They have a lot of specailized tools (thank goodness for Amazon), some just make it easy to do things, others are necessary for the work. And they also seem to use every fastner end type, torx, hex etc. pain in azz.
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True, bike is 99% torx, but buy a HD aftermarket part and they typically come with hex.. Very strange
 
nobbie48 said:
Makita used to have a grey line as well as the blue. IRC the greys had sleeve bearings and the blues had roller or ball.
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The very first 18V brushless impact driver I bought was a Makita and made in Japan, 12-13 years and a ton of use later it works the same as the day I bought it. Everything now is made in China, mates struggle to get 5-6 years of of them now before stuff starts going wrong.
 
nobbie48 said:
Makita used to have a grey line as well as the blue. IRC the greys had sleeve bearings and the blues had roller or ball.
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In Japan and possibly other markets they have different color available. Might be a limited edition thing.
 
oioioi said:
In Japan and possibly other markets they have different color available. Might be a limited edition thing.
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Not sure if current, but Makita had a "contractor's" line 30-40yrs ago. Tools are a sort of camo green colour, and were only sold in tool stores. (not big box). Several times the price of their "blue" stuff.
I still have my 10" (barely) portable table saw (contractor grade).
B&D same thing. 35 yrs ago. All cast bodies with plastic triggers. Nearly indestructible.
A ½" hammer drill, and a jigsaw from them still sits in my collection.
Also.....lol....still have my running/original, blue Makita 7.2V with metal case.
 
I have a Miller's Falls drill from the 1930s (I think, it was my grand father's)... it was wired for 30Hz. Makes great polisher at 60Hz... about 3500 rpm.
Try buying machine tools, other than carbide, everything made in the last 30 years is crap... or is made in Germany and costs a king's ransom
 
Makita made a grey line and a red line of tools and briefly a green line , hitachi ( now metabo) went green so Makita went blue and red , ryobi was original blue so Makita had red for lumberyard tools , then went all blue , ryobi has changed green shades three times . Porter Cable was among the best when owned by Delta ( Rockwell-beaver) then black and pecker bought them and Dewalt would be the flag ship for B-D , porter became second tier . for what it’s worth B-D did an industrial line in the 60s through 80s that was fabulous .
I still have a Porter Cable chain drive belt sander and 5hp variable spd router that was industry standard . I tested a DC sander from Merka that was so impressive I bought it , and the hepa vac to go with .
There is a happy medium between industry tools and consumer crap , but it’s really hard to go backwards once you’ve been spoiled with nice tools


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Owning and operator a transmission shop for 14 or so yrs, Selling and getting into heavy equipment repairs in mines from one end of Canada to the other. I've acquired a mass amount of tools. If i was to put a dollar figure to it i probably would break out in tears.

When i had my transmission shop i had a few specialty tools that was needed to disassemble and reassemble the units. Getting into heavy equipment i ended it with some much bigger tools in the way of sockets and guns.
 
@ToSlow , when you go remote heavy equipment service , does your toolbox go with you or is stuff on site??

A billion years ago my Dad was a heavy equipment guy and taught diesel at a community college. The 1” drive socket set he left me weighs 90lbs , without the breaker bar . Wrench set up to 3 1/2 in is really handy for fixing a toaster ….


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crankcall said:
At one time , branded tools with Ford , Chev, HD , Massey Furgeson ect came with new machinery in the toolkit . Highly collectible stuff .
Brand loyalty on job sites is massive here in Canada , hardest part of tool sales is “switching” a customer. It’s part status and part battery comparability , if your a company with 100 cordless drills the last thing you need are 9 kinds of batteries.


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There's a full set of Mercedes-Benz double box end wrenches in my fathers garage. Metric of course. He still has them and a bunch of pliers and screw drivers. Apparently back in the 70's they came with a pretty complete tool set for general maintenance needs rather than emergency repairs.
 
crankcall said:
@ToSlow , when you go remote heavy equipment service , does your toolbox go with you or is stuff on site??

A billion years ago my Dad was a heavy equipment guy and taught diesel at a community college. The 1” drive socket set he left me weighs 90lbs , without the breaker bar . Wrench set up to 3 1/2 in is really handy for fixing a toaster ….


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Most jobs and trucks are fully tooled out for the most part,

I was at one point flying my tools in a job box. Made for interesting times when i was on the job for a wk before my tools would show up.
 
GreyGhost said:
For cordless I used to be yellow. Lost too many gearboxes and switched to red. Never looked back. A sprinkling of blue, green and yellow for various special purpose tools (or infrequently used tools where tti wants double for red over green for functionally very similar tools). Plug in tools are mostly blue (they make tool form factors that work really well for me and are often ignored by competitors).
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I started yellow, after some disappointments I went orange which have served me well, but are kinda like stock Fords... a bit underpowered.

Way back before batteries and when Sears was still going, my garage looked like a display for Craftsman... everything... garden tools hand tools, power tools.

Today I'm pretty much red for anything with a battery. I usually pick my electric and air tools by specialization and planned use. Good stuff if it goung to get a lot if use, PowerFister for the once and while stuff.
 
timtune said:
I didn't see the PowerFist logo. Is no one willing to admit it's their's?
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I have lots of that stuff! I don't buy anything that takes impact except hammers. Off hand I can think of... heat gun, planishing hammer, metal cutoff saw, sandblaster, couple of Lvhp guns.
 
DownUnder said:
The very first 18V brushless impact driver I bought was a Makita and made in Japan, 12-13 years and a ton of use later it works the same as the day I bought it. Everything now is made in China, mates struggle to get 5-6 years of of them now before stuff starts going wrong.
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I used to have Panasonic impact and drill driver for this reason. Not cheap, but super high quality. Once, dropped my drill from 2 stories onto a concrete basement and it still worked perfectly.

The run time seemingly went on forever on these tools.

They still make awesome impact drivers, but abandoned all the other stuff they used to make like circular saws and such.
 
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Torren said:
There's a full set of Mercedes-Benz double box end wrenches in my fathers garage. Metric of course. He still has them and a bunch of pliers and screw drivers. Apparently back in the 70's they came with a pretty complete tool set for general maintenance needs rather than emergency repairs.
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The toolkit tools you want to find are the TiN coated Facom. They're worth money.
 
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