Craftsman used to be valuable, because they had a strong reputation and a rock-solid replacement policy. That's no longer the case, and you're better off spending less money for Harbor Freight tools that are now good quality and fully warrantied.

Craftsman used to fill a void. It was for the home hobbyist who needed something that would last, but wasn't as expensive as snap-on or bluepoint.

Now if I'm looking at craftsman, I'm either going to an estate sale to buy older items, or I'm going to harbor freight for a disposable.

There doesn't seem to be a company to fill that home hobbyist niche anymore.

Their lifetime warranty used to cover their poor quality. Buying duplicates was cheaper than snap-on and better suited to field work, where losing tools is a fact of life. My dad would buy duplicates and bulk-return the broken ones a few times a year. Apparently he deduced out the engineered working life of most of their tools.

Hazard Fraught is moving up the food chain in a number of tool lines. They're definitely filling that void.

The business model appears to be to sell reasonable quality tools and nail consumers with low quality consumables.

I avoid HF if I can but their new line of welders is getting rave reviews at a 1/4 the price of the American brands.

At this point, I would buy HF over Crapsman.

Honestly, I avoided harbor freight for anything unless I knew I was going to destroy whatever it was in short order.

I now have a woodshop full of HF clamps that carry a better warranty than bessey and work just as well. I also have the HF wood lathe that is super cheap for the quality.

At Harbor Freight, every Indian-made tool I've used has been junk (wrenches). Every Chinese-made product has been acceptable to good. Every Taiwanese- and American-made (yes, they have a few!) product has been excellent.

The chrome and stamping on the sockets is every bit as good as my ~2000 era Craftsman sockets, and far better than the last Craftsman tool I bought around '07.

Husky seems to be aiming to fill that void, and by some reports they're doing a decent job.

I'm sure they don't measure up to Craftsman of fifty years ago, but neither does Craftsman.

I'd suggest Gearwrench or Tekton, Wright or Williams (same manufacturer as Snap On) if you want American made.

How is Wright a hobbyist tool though? All the Wright tools I have purchased have been as much or more than Snap-On, they are mainly targeting the industrial market (with pricing to match).

Plus, Gearwrench is not american made, it is Taiwanese. Good tools, but your statement is factually incorrect.

> Plus, Gearwrench is not american made, it is Taiwanese. Good tools, but your statement is factually incorrect.

I think that's just ambiguous wording. Try parsing it like this:

> I'd suggest ((Gearwrench) or (Tekton, Wright or Williams (same manufacturer as Snap On) if you want American made.))

It's just crappy wording on my part. I was unsure if Tekton was also Taiwanese so I omitted country of origin on the first two. To clarify:

Gearwrench, Tekton and some Williams wrenches: Asia-made, reasonably priced, more than adequate for hobbyist use.

Wright and some Williams wrenches: US-made, more expensive but cheaper and more available than Snap-on, marketed towards industrial applications instead of professional mechanics.

Tekton doesn't make any tools, but source them from other manufacturers. So they have some Taiwanese, some Chinese, and some US made. Most of the pliers and all of the punches come from Wilde, a US manufacturer.

Until now. Introducing my new line: 'Craft Harbor'

Best Buy's retail stores have been surprisingly successful. Sears can probably learn some lessons from Best Buy. Turn your competitor's strength into a weakness, e.g. people want to see and try big appliances before they buy them. You can do that at Best Buy and Sears, not Amazon.

re #2:

Craftsman 450-Piece Mechanic's Tool Set

https://www.amazon.com/Craftsman-450-Piece-Mechanics-Tool-Se...

Owned by renowned bastions of quality black and decker now.

To be fair, so is Dewalt, and that doesn't seem to have hurt their reputation.

I had a nightmarish time last year buying a complete set of 12 point craftsman sockets from sears online.

The first lot arrived at the store in a brown cardboard box from china and about half the sockets were missing. Returned it, complained, ordered another set, same issue.

Their customer service was shocking throughout.

I'd recommend buying an old set of Craftsman on Craigslist - or if you're lucky and find snap-on or Mac at a good price grab them. Otherwise I hate to write it but Harborfreight tools are mostly pretty much on par with Craftsman these days...

https://www.harborfreight.com/301-Pc-Mechanics-Tool-Set-6346...

Wow, is Sears commingling inventory with fakes now like Amazon?

I don't think Sears had much control over the sockets they sent, I think they came direct from their supplier in China with no quality check by Sears before delivery. The packaging was all in Chinese and was basically a bunch of random sockets thrown in a brown cardboard box, no branding.

They were the lazer cut Craftsman sockets with the bigger type on them which I like as you can see the size while grovelling around in the dark under cars, or at least sockets made with the same format. I still have 20 bucks of sears consolation money to spend online due to this debacle but it's hard to know how to spend it...

Out of curiosity, as someone who is looking to have on hand some quality tools, who would you recommend?

There are a ton of options as far as tools are concerned, and it really depends on frequency and type of use. For most people, cheap stuff is fine. Harbor Freight is far less "disposable" than people make it out to be, and tons of professionals happily use their tools. (No, really. Go visit your local mechanic or machinist. It is pretty likely they have that one 12in disk sander, if nothing else)

If you want to spend money, DeWalt and Milwaukee are still the industry standards, and I think that reputation is deserved. I've had pretty much exclusively positive experiences with their performance and longevity.

One thing to remember is that a cheap drill with a good bit is often going to outperform a good drill with a cheap bit. So it is worth spending a little extra on that sort of things, particularly if you see yourself working with metal at all.

Also, get some type of Dremel or similar. One of the most useful tools when you don't really have the correct tool for the job.

People are mentioning Dewalt and Milwaukee here, but if you want a lifetime set of tools for a reasonable price I think it’s tough to do better than Makita. I paid around $250 for a drill and impact driver over 10 years ago and they are still my daily drivers, never once slowed me down.

Reason I bought them is because I asked exact same question you are asking to a bunch of hardcore blue collar guys at the factory I worked at, and they recommended Makita.

Depends on what quality you want, the price you want, what you intend to do, and if you care about the country of origin. Best to buy tools for projects, otherwise you will enter an expensive hobby of collecting tools.

For power tools - Ryobi is fine for home use; the new Harbor Freight power tools have ok reviews. Dewalt and Milwaukee are better IMHO. Dewalt is assembling some of their power tools in the U.S. now. I have Ryobi, Dewalt, Ingersol Rand and Milwaukee cordless tools and battery systems. I personally prefer the Dewalt.

For hand tools, I have Snap-on, SK, Klein, Sunnex, Engineer, Craftsman, ChannelLock and some miscellaneous hand tools from other manufacturers. It really depends on what you want to do. I personally prefer tools made in U.S.A., Japan, and Taiwan in that order. But that is simply a personal preference.

Finally, keep in mind that no one company manufacturers all of their tools. A lot of tools are just rebranded and might be the same exact tool at considerably different prices.

Milwaukee makes pretty decent power tools. Their M18 batteries seem to hold up better than most. Whatever you go with, you really do want to standardize on one model of battery, so that everything is interchangeable and you don't end up with a half-dozen different chargers.

The adage I've heard is that if you care enough that you want to spend money on a nicer one you probably want a corded tool, rather than cordless. Which makes sense to me -- a corded tool is always going to be more powerful.

I'd agree with you, for the most part. Nevertheless, there's always things you need to use in places where running a cable is awkward, and that's where my cordless drills and impact drivers and stuff in that class are workhorses. I've tried to buy cheap Ryobi stuff, but it just gets burned up quickly.

Fair enough. I totally get it with a drill. I just go with Ryobi on cordless and it's been good though for my purposes.

Bosch is good quality and they go on sale on Amazon occasionally. I have an 18v drill, impact wrench, circular saw, sawsall, and jig saw from them and they are all top-notch.

The only one I don't love is the circular saw, but that's mainly because battery powered ones are just not as good as corded.

For hand tools, Gearwrench is a very solid option, IMO their wrenches compare favorably even to something like Snap-On.

Harbor Freight has some good stuff, their hand tools aren't bad and their air tools(esp. the earthquake impact guns) are good, but NEVER buy anything from that store that 1) has a battery 2) is a consumable (sandpaper, saw blades, etc.) 3) you will absolutely depend on professionally (so like craftsman, if you absolutely need then buy 2 and rotate through them.

> Out of curiosity, as someone who is looking to have on hand some quality tools, who would you recommend?

Bosch, Hilti and Makita. I have a Hilti power drill that is literally older than me, the thing belonged to my grandpa and is still drilling on.

I've always looked at Dewalt if I wanted something nice, but I usually buy the cheap Ryobi tool and only think about replacing it if it's not meeting my needs. Easy to spend more than you need to on tools as a home owner.

Milwaukee, Dewalt and Ryobi work very well for me though I prefer the more expensive corded versions.

Ryobi is what I used for the lighter stuff.

Snap-on, Knipex, Milwaukee, Bosch

IIRC they sold the Craftsman brand off for some short term cash.