Thread: abosoloute bargain on rebadged milwaukee drill

Hi Ratbag!

no trepidation necessary whatsoever, and no begging to differ, either! Feel free to differ, i welcome it when faults in my stories are brought to light; this forum is all about useful and correct information. So keep doing it when you see any other inconsistencies or false details in my stories! Thank you for the compliment and for mentioning this new information that i never saw before.

There was indeed a noticeable design change in the Winnenden product line after somewhere in the timelapse of the selling of AEG by Daimler AG and the buying by TTI. AEG had abandoned the familiar semi-metal drill designs like the famous SB4-500 and SB2E-600 around 1980 (with the SB2E-750 being the last of this series). The newly introduced SB2E-751 and -901 of 1982 had metal gear boxes with a black nylon insulating layer and the AEG blue was revamped from the dark Berlin blue to a somewhat brighter hue. The same design characteristics could be found in the STSE-400 jig saw, the HK52 circular saw, the VS(S) 260 and 360 orbital sanders and the grinder WSE1900/2300 and -501/-601/-801. Some cheaper AEG models were badge-engineered products from Outillage Peugeot, e.g. the STS(E)-250 jig saw and the VS250 orbital sander, which were also sold by Peugeot itself in either olive green or yellow livery.

And then, in the latter 90's, this range was skipped almost entirely and replaced by indeed ergonomically better designs, like the new hammer drill range and the new cylindrical motor housing design for small angle grinders, nibblers, shears and straight grinder. And then there were the T-Tec drill and the new STEP jig saw design, looking totally different from what AEG had made before, but bearing resemblance to the Milwaukee battery drill/driver line. And since Atlas had no electric tool manufacturing of its own (nor experience in this field, because that's what they bought AEG and Milwuakee for in the first place), i had no clue about Atlas playing a leading role in revamping the AEG line to ergonomic perfection. Also, the AEG battery tool line of that period had a soberness and boring smoothness resembling something from Porsche or Braun. Something totally different in any way of what Milwaukee came up with or of what the T-Tec and STEP looked like.So that's where my assumption came from: i thought Milwaukee to be a more likely candidate than AEG Winnenden itself. Wrong. And brilliant that you added this new info. There's something new to learn every day!

You're quite right about AEG no longer being what it used to be. But the same goes for Hilti, Metabo, Mafell and many others. E.g., the sole reason for AEG still making the B4-1050 ( an evergreen type that has been around since the 60's) is the demand for it, that still exists. There is a lot of heavy industry in Germany (foundries, shipbuilding, metal construction, heavy equipment, locomotives, tanks, weaponry, infrastructure factories making bridges, etc.), so the brands Eibenstock, Metabo, Baier, Bosch, Makita Germany, DeWalt Germany and indeed AEG all come up with their own liveries of heavy low-rpm hi-torque metal drills.

Hiring Porsche to think up an oddball machine like Metabo's upside carbon fibre hammer drill, must be seen as a PR stunt. It attracts attention but it contains the inner parts of the proven 602x hammer drill series. It isn't worth more trouble than raising shoulders and a grin and then ignoring it. The really disturbing aspect is the conspicious trouble that the Porsche Design studio goes through to justify this design and make a point of proving its supposedly superiority, clearly against better judgment. Porsche has merely debased itself with this effort and will probably write this enterprise off as an interesting design study into a niche that it never tried before, having had a good time tinkering with it. I don't know how much Metabo sold of these, but there are quite a few of them in Ebay Germany, fetching less than what their auctioneers hoped they would.

The Skil 77 mentioned above, has been won and has arrived and i will take it apart next month. Pictures will follow. I will also try to retrieve an Atlas-Copco electric tool catelogue that i have packed in storage, showing their battery tool line and the black T-Tec. When i found it, i will scan it and post pictures of it.

Again many thanks and kind regards!

gerhard