My stuff is rigid, because I bought the hammer drill several years ago and it’s been outstanding so naturally when I need new tools I just get another rigid now.
I bought a bunch of Dewalt XR tools right after buying our house. I can’t compare them to anything, but so far they have been able to handle everything I throw at them.
Used Craftsman for the longest time until Sears sold/spun off the brand, then stopped purchasing altogether. I moved into a new home and when I needed a replacement, my new neighbor turned me onto Milwaukee and I never looked back. Replacing years old Craftsman tools with Milwaukee as needed.
Yes, but it's better than no tool. Honestly, neither of those ratchets have broken yet and I've literally hammered on them so I don't have any complaints so far.
I have a bunch of Snap-on tools that I rely on for various things. For things I don’t have, I go to harbor freight for a “good enough to at least get the current job done” tool.
I went with Dewalt when their 20v tools came out, so i stuck with them. It's nice to be able to use the same batteries for all my tools. Kind of want to switch to Milwaukee though, they seem to perform a little better, but I don't use them enough to justify changing at this point.
Milwaukee is kind of over-priced for what you get. It’s good, but from what I’ve seen, not better enough to warrant the price. The corded Sawzall is the exception. It’s the only Sawzall to get.
What about non-power tools? I always end up buying Ryobi for power tools and Husky for non-power tools. Those seem to always be the cheapest options whenever I have to buy something.
I run Ryobi for battery tools and Harbor Freight stuff for most of the hand tools. I splurged a bit and went with Tekton for my wrenches. But really, harbor freight stuff has been absolutely fine for me, especially their new higher tier tools like Icon and Quinn.
Same, with one big caveat: I wont use HF for anything safety related. They’ve had recalls on their jackstands. If it can fail while I’m under it, I don’t go HF lol
I had the same reservation until recently. A few weeks back I bought a set of their 6t Daytona jackstands after inspecting the welds and safety pins and those things are damn solid. I probably wouldn’t use their much cheaper and smaller 3t models, but these 6t stands are great. I have a hunch they upped their QC and quality after all that bad jackstands press they got.
The best thing about Husky tools is their warranty process. If one breaks, you take it to Home Depot, you show the customer service person, they shrug, you go get one from the shelf, you show the customer service person you’re not screwing them, and then you leave. You are without your tool for about an hour while you make the trip, as Home Depots are abundant, and other tool brands with similar warranties are less so. Die Hard tools from Advanced Auto has similar advantages, however they also tend to be priced higher without a ton of advantages. So, either go Home Depot for the abundance of locations, Harbor Freight for having the cheapest entry into this warranty process, or whatever Home Depot, Advanced Auto, Harbor Freight, or Lowes is closest to you.
The biggest downside of this warranty process is that the tools are made cheap enough to be replaceable (or disposable) from the perspective of Home Depot et al. If you want to avoid this, I recommend the sorts of tools you can get at Grainger. SK is my favorite out of that tier of tools. These are generally about the same quality as tool truck tools, but at a lower cost since you’re not having a representative of the tool company come check once a week if you need any support. The warranty process though will be longer than the tool truck brands as those will usually see you out of hot water in a week, whereas the non-truck professional tools might be in the mail and back to the manufacturer for about a month or so. The mechanic I grew up seeing recommended non-professionals getting a set of tools from Harbor Freight for that they’re very cheap, fine enough, and most homeowners will never use any given hand tool enough to warrant taking it for warranty service. He himself had two sets of tools in his shop. There was the set of Snap-on tools he used day to day, and the set of Craftsman tools he used if the Snap-on tools died so that if the Craftsman tool broke while he was waiting on the Snap-on guy to come fix things up for him, he could just hop in his truck, go to Sears, and get the tool replaced and only ever lose an hour of work.
Finally, and this is what I most recommend, try looking for used professional tools from the “mail it back” warranty brands second hand. These companies generally don’t honor warranties for professionals buying these tools second hand as the warranty originally sold was for the lifetime of the original owner, but most of them are perfectly happy to provide warranty service for whatever random jackass bought an SK ratchet off a Harley-Davidson technician who was retiring. A lot of the time, the people working at that higher end market care more about maintaining brand reputation than they do losing a few nickels and dimes along the way. Further, they will often treat tools they receive back as R&D for what manufacturing flaws were missed along the way, and so a few tools from non-professional users that they can analyze will help them keep selling tools to professional users who will be very unhappy if their tool fails. The brands in this category to look out for are:
SK Tools
Williams
Wright
Wera
Others that I haven’t thought of in a long time
Generally speaking, I do think Wera is a bit overrated, but if you’re in Europe they’re absolutely where I’d send you. The other thing I like about going second hand like this, is that what I don’t like about the cheap tools model of warranty is the wastefulness of not fixing tools. Extracting and refining metal takes resources and creates pollutants. I’d much rather take older tools and fix them
Woa cool, thanks for the tips. Yeah, looking for used professional tools sounds like the way to go. The tools will either be better from the start, or like you say, you can try mailing them back to see if they’ll throw you a bone on the original owner’s warranty.
I follow the Adam Savage school of tool buying, if you are not sure you’re going to use the tool a lot buy a cheap one, by the time it finally “dies” you’ll know if it’s worth investing in better quality.
When my girlfriend moved in I "inherited" a couple Ryobi drills with a few batteries. I thought it would be wasteful to not use those batteries, so I just defaulted to Ryobi. They work fine? I'm not in construction, so they work for my needs. I'm not a fan of the neon green, but it does make the tools easier to find.
I've noticed people like to shit on Ryobi but they're being aggressively advertised and competitively priced. I haven't tried them but I'm pretty curious if they're actually bad.
I’ve smoked tools from all of the major brands at work and I prefer the stink of Makita electronics over all of the others, so generally thats what I’ll gravitate towards at the tool store. That said, the stuff we’ve got at home for projects around the house is all ryobi green. Sure they feel kinda cheap, sure they aren’t as powerful, but for around the house stuff they do just fine, just don’t beat on them like I do mine.
I had all Dewalt for a number of years went from their 18v to 20v line. But i kept wanting a few tools they did not make so i purchased the Ryobi versions. I was so happy with the price, capability, and mostly variety of tools. I switched completely over to Ryobi. Sold all my old Dewalt 18v stuff. I now have prob 35 different Ryobi products and 5-6 Dewalt. I even have Ryobi’s 40v trimmer, chainsaw, leaf blower, pole saw. I simply love that Ryobi has pretty much any freaking power tool you can think of, and more.
Is Ryobi the best…No. Does Ryobi have a heck of a selection at really good prices…Yes. Is Ryobi perfectly fine for Home\hobbiest use…Absolutely! If i was in the trades and used these tools daily would i choose Ryobi…Probably not, I would prob go with Milwaukee.
It wouldn’t surprise me if they didn’t hold up more than a couple years if you were using them 40+ hours a week on commercial jobs for years on end, but for weekend home use? I’ve had my basic drill for like idk 10 years now and it still works as good as the day I bought it. I have a handful of Ryobi tools and recently picked up the bottom tier Ryobi 40v mower and have been nothing but impressed. I’ve done a lot of mowing of tall, wet grass the last few weeks and the thing just works.
I actually use mine for work, but I’m not using most of them daily. For me I needed variety (the right tool for the job) and them all to be on the same battery ecosystem. They’ve also got some great “widgets”, the 1-gal battery shop vac is around $60-70 IIRC and is an amazing little bit of kit. It’s like a suitcase of clean. The power caulker isn’t a technical marvel but has absolutely saved my wrist on a few jobs. I was on the fence about the power brush but use it a TON around the house. The battery hot glue gun is also more useful than I thought it would be.
I made a 10 amp 18v corded adapter I can use with all the tools when power is available and I don’t want to fry the battery. I also made an adapter so I can USB charge off my batteries if the power goes out or something (they make those but I had the parts).
But I’ve never had issues. It is worth researching each tool though. They tend to have tiers even within the brand (18v vs the HP+ line). The sawzall in that starter kit is… cute. It “works” in the strictest sense of the word. The little circular saw is similar, but there’s a lot more use cases for a lightweight, low-profile circ saw; I love mine. The impact drivers/drills always did right by me. The battery powered chop saw is pretty great (I love that I can just slap a battery on it for a few cuts or use my adapter).
All in all, from what I’ve heard the issue isn’t usually performance it’s durability. That being said, it’s not like I baby my tools, I just don’t use the same tool everyday like a contractor might. IMO it’s a great brand for a ton of people. I think they’re fine for home improvement, just maybe not building a house.
I caught a lot of flak for buying my Black and Decker Matrix set but it’s been very solid for me for a few years. Granted, I only use my tools a couple of time a month on average. But it sure is handy to have a drill that’s also an impact driver and also an air compressor and uses the same batteries as my weed whacker and leaf blower.
I have a Matrix because at the time I was looking, it was the only way to get a corded impact driver at a reasonable price. Then of course I got a cordless and never use the Matrix, but that swiss army knife feel is pretty cool.
I’ve always thought of Rigid as being the TTI prosumer brand and Milwaukee being more contractor-level, though their M12 line kinda bumps into the homeowner target market now where for most uses 12V gets the job done. Either way, both definitely have their places. Ryobi is great for homeowners who need the tool but won’t use it often enough to justify the price of the Milwaukee durability.
I believe that "Hart" at Wal Mart is also a TTI brand, roughly Ryobi quality but of course so many fewer offerings. I think Wally World got pissed that Stanley B&D wouldn't do a DeWalt line for them and made a better deal with TTI.
They must be decent since Walmart still sells them and i’ve not seen much, if any, bad press about them.
Honestly debated picking up some Hart stuff at a couple points, but I’m a cheap miser who keeps falling back to using his something like 70 year old corded drill.
Keep using that glorious 70-year-old corded drill. So, long as it’s not a fire hazard, and it’s doing what you need, don’t let anyone convince you that your relationship with your drill is wrong. Either they don’t understand the love that you two share, or they’re jealous
Nah, its not that, just dealing with the extention cord gets old and tiresome, especially when its 90 degrees out and the heats making your temper flare:p
But on the plus side… Its a brushed motor, so every time i pull the trigger its like my own personal 4th of july, lol.
Sure, but if you get a cordless one, never let your old drill know. Just like that hand drill that sits in the box under your desk, wondering why you stopped needing to put holes in stuff so many years ago
Which is why there are a plethora of battery adapters out there to allow you to use almost whatever goddamn battery you want on any tool you want (in the same voltage group, at least), lol :D
I buy Makita battery tools because there are extremely good quality chinese clones available of the Makita batteries. I get the skin for dirt cheap, and then I get the largest capacity battery for dirt cheap.
It would be super cool if they made the battery interface universal so that buyers could base their decision on the quality of the actual tools but this is unchecked capitalism, baby!
This is correct. I almost worked for them. They also make (or at least did) make the pump/sprayer for swifter wet jets, Hoover and dirt devil vacuums, and I’m sure I’m forgetting some others. Their HQ is where I first saw a 3d printer like 15 years ago. It was a pretty interesting company.
Cordless-wise, I have B&D, Porter Cable, and Bostitch (drill and impact driver that they used to sell at Wal-Mart) because they are all electrically compatible SB&D products, requiring only a few kisses from a Dremel to interoperate like a single system. Also made an adapter for my ancient Ridgid X2 anchor, I mean DRILL; it was a gift and just sits on the shelf with a countersink in it, but it still works.
Got a little bit of everything for the woodshop, Wen jointer, Shopsmith planer, band saw, scroll saw, and Mark V, Sawstop Contractor saw, Harbor Freight Dust Collector.
