Don't know who makes them but the big ol' set I received as a gift years back had some good ones and a lot of bad ones. The phillips heads shredded the box ends stripped and so on and so forth. Mine were a good starter kit but, unless they've been improoved, were far from state of the art. Walmart Special on tools.
Well all the husky tools I have have alife time warranty. I had hell a few times trading crap in and getting it replaced. Seems they discontinued alot of tools. go figure, home depot sucks donkey cock. most of my wrenches have held up fine, the ratchets were nice at first but have broken (4) 1/4" dirve ones, and (2) 3/8" drive ones, and (1) 1/2" one. Their 3/8" drive philips bits worked ok until they split, then I had hell exchanging them. They did not want to break a set apart on the shelf. I was kinda pissed. they offered to order them though. after a month of waiting I gave up, bought some Crapsman, I have yet to break one of them. The majority of my tools are MAC, Snap-On, Matco, or Proto. I have one 250 piece or so Crapsman, and a 250 or so piece husky from horrible depot. a 50th anniversary mac tools, 3 tier box a 3 tier special form Sam's club, and a 2 tier Crapsman tool box. All packed to the hilt, and then boxes of tools int he shelves with no where to put them yet. Not to mention all the tools still in the shelves at my moms house, along with my Model A. I heard a rumor a while back that stanley made them for husky, if that answeres ur question. I have a few Kobalt tools from Lowes as well, they have held up fine too. I am not easy on my tools either, they definately get used. If you really want good reliable tools, shell out the money on mac or Snap-on. Ebay is one of the best places to get them, unless you make friends with a tool rep. If you buy electrical tools, be sure to get Klien tools, they kick ass and warranty rocks as well. Well worth the few extra bucks.
Husky WAS an American company that started in the 1920's. Up untill the 90's, it was still a USA made line of tools. I have a Husky socket set that my dad bought me in the mid 90's, that is all USA made. Now Husky is mostly Stanley made tools. I believe it is owned by Home Depot, and they outsource everything. Most of the hand tools are made by Stanley in Taiwan. Kobalt hand tools (used to be made by William,s a Snap On company) are made in the USA and china. Pliers, screwdrivers etc are usualy chineses or tiwanese, but ratchets, sockets and wrenches are all made by Danaher, same cdompany who makes Craftsman hand tools, but the Kobalt ratcherts have a much better feel and finnish than the Craftsman ones. In the end, fi you want to buy tools once, and not worry about them breaking, the tool trucks have the best stuff, but charge an unreasonably high premium. Is a snap on ratchet worth 5 times what a craftsman one costs? No. is it worth 2 or 3 times what the craftsman costs? yes, you just have to pay 5 times the price to get it. When working on old cars where fasteners have been in place for decades, and are often rusted, high quality tools are very important to working in these situations. A busted socket or busted ratcher/breaker bar could mean busted knuckles. I started replacing all of my craftsman, husky, and kobalt tools with Snap On last year, and while it was a very big investment, I now have tools that work better, make my hobby more enjoyable (with less cussing), and I know I will have them for the rest of my life.
Between the two giant hardware store brands - husky, home depot VS. kobalt, lowes - I went with kobalt. I looked at both and I liked the kobalt stuff better.
From what I can remember correctly Husky buys all of Snap-on's old dies and makes their own tools because I used to engrave the stamps that used to stamp all the snap on wrenches and any time I made patterns I made a duplicate set with the Husky names on them as well , but that was 8 or 9 years ago. Jerome
Thats interesting, but 8-9 years ago Husky was still an American company, now its just a name owned by Home Depot, with Stanley making the Hand tools, with Stanley designs and dies, with the Husky name cast in them.
Stanley has made many of the house-"branded" handtools available through hardware stores, auto parts stores and others for decades. Yes, many of their tools are now made in Taiwan but there are still US made ones.
Working as a machinist for a number of years I found Kolbolt to be the best. I can't tell you how many times I traded in craftsman wrenches becuase they eventally wore out and it didnt take em long either!!! When Kolbolt came out I thought I'd give em a go and bought a 1/2 inch one end 9/16 other end slim open ended wrench which when I was using craftsman would last 3-4 months. Well with kolbolt I had it 4 years before I quit being a machinist and never replaced it once. Guess which brand I use now!! Plus you can get some good deals on them to!!!
Well, news for you, Kobalt when they first came out were made by Williams (a snap on company, but it doesnt mean a kobalt wrench is the same metal and hardening process as a Snap On wrench), now as of about a few years ago they are made by Danaher, the same company that makes craftsman. I would bet that they use the same steel, and the same manufacturing process. The Kobalt ratchets are nicer than the standard Craftman ratchets simply because they are contoured better, and fully polished, therefore easier on your hands. So you may not find the Kobalt tools the same as you did several years ago. Williams makes great wrenches, Danaher, well, just OK.
Stanley owns Husky, Blackhawk & Mac. The old (pre Home Creepo ) Husky are very good.... the newer stuff....not so great.. As has been said most Husky stuff has been outsourced to China. Matco, Cornwell, Snap-On & S-K are good stuff to have...just a little more pricey. Craftsman stuff has went downhill lately in quality unless you get the "professional" series.
Hey, With as many good "MADE IN U.S.A." tools still available I can't, for the life of me ,guess why anyone who actually uses tools,would even bother with the late model hardware crap! I still step over early Plumb, Proto, Snap Off, Mac, Cornwell, Craftsman & Williams tools at swap meets and garage sales. I say fuck all that off-shore crap and build yourself a real tool box, from real tools, not remelted Subaru bumpers! Swankey Devils C.C.
When I was buying tools for US Govt. SK used to make most of their hand tools in Defiance OH. But that was about 15 years ago. Snap-On stuff is still the best if you don't mind the cost. But SK are probably the best tools for the money.
I got a Husky 3/8, ratchet set that was my dad's that is probably 40 years old or more ,and a S-K set about that old.Yard sales and flea markets are a great place to find tools ,a lot of good old tools not so expensive.
They SK Wayne were baught out by Facom (french I believe) at some point, but they are once again an independant, and still made in the USA (except for the G-Force ratcheting wrench line). There is a difference® I agree, there is no comparison. They feel the best, have better features, built the toughest, but all at a premium cost. However, when purchased lightly used, are a great value.
http://www.danaher.com/business/strategic_detail.asp?key=12 They make Craftsman, Kobalt, Matco, and others.
How do you guys break tons of ratchets? You ever heard of a breaker bar? I guess my reliance on shitty, chinese tools in my early days pounded that into my head...
I have a mix in 3 different rollaway boxes, but if you can get them used snapon or mac are worth the money as Chad S said..... With what is going on right now in the housing market there will be a lot of used stuff for sale, I have seen some good deals lately,, like a loaded snap on top and bottom for less than 8k... if you bought it off the truck it would be 40k easy, (I missed it by about 3hrs) , so keep your eyes open.. you may be supprized at what you find for sale, But deffinately stay away from the cheep stuff your hands/knuckles will regret it....
I hit garage and estate sales and buy all the old tools. I have gotten some really nice old Craftsman from my Grandpa and the quality is much better than today. I have all my SK from the service and for the price (free) I couldn't loose. For the money anymore if you need to buy some of those useless safety torks or something like that, Kobalt is a good brand with guarantee replacement.
Thats not the link I had before. They had a website with all the tools you could order and one of us on here had there name stamped in a craftsman toolset.
I use the hell out of my Craftsman professional tools. Contoured to fit your hand better than the standard line, wrenches available in standard length, stubby and long, screwdrivers that actually bite... As starter tools, it's hard to be the regular Craftsman line. As we get older and demand more from our tools, we get pickier. For me, it makes a helluva lot more sense to spend $49 for a set of Craftsman stubby polished wrenches than a couple hundred Snap-on stubby wrenches. I agree with the comment about the breaker bar, too. Yeah, I've had to return two or three Craftsman ratchets over the years, but everyone I know with Snap-on ratchets has had to replace those mechanisms over the years too. And a lot of people bitch about Craftsman now replacing just the mechanism in ratchets now...but that's exactly what Snap-on does. If you're a pro, I can see the benefit of the tool truck coming right to your door. For the rest of us, I can't make the justification for 3-4 times the cost of Craftsman professional series. -Brad
Strictly Snap-on for almost thirty years when I turned wrenches for a living, even still have afew Par-x left over. Now if I need a tool kobalt, proto
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