Thread: Cheap tools - are just that!

Originally Posted by Mr Brush

As I've said before, think of all the environmental trouble and tooling (digging up for metals, making plastics from oil, injection mould tooling, labour) that go into making a crappy electric drill with a factory gate price of probably $10 in China, pay for it to get shipped halfway around the world, we buy it at Bunnies, use it twice, declare "What a piece of useless junk", throw it in the bin, then it is returned to the earth in the form of landfill. Does make you think.....

Totally agree Mr Brush,

Unfortunately people with there fingers in the pie of these companies, have one Agenda an one agenda only, $$$$$$$$
They don’t give a S……. about environmental issues, it’s $$$$$$ that matter’s.

Absolutely nothing else matters.

Cheers Matt.

Originally Posted by bruceward51

The image shows the damaged bit (top) compared top a new one of the same size. Clearly inferior material and probably not hardened by the look of it.

Yes, not hardened. made for an interesting look after the twist, and I'm surprised it didn't work harden, crack or break.

There's a story that goes around here, and it may be an OWT, that one of the boutique toolmakers here went to china and observed the making of a set of drill bits with one or two of the set being hardened and the rest being dipped to look like they'd been hardened and tempered. The end of it goes something like "everyone knows americans only use 1/4" and ___" (don't remember the size, another bit).

imported tools have probably saved me a lot of money over the years. First instance that I can remember is being able to get reasonably priced measuring tools to reload, and then when I got a house, getting a corded ryobi hammer drill to install a chimney top damper to stop dead birds from accumulating in the basement fireplace, and prevent the fireplace from being an open airway in the winter. The cost to have one installed was $500. The cost to buy the damper and get a drill and bits was about $150. and a long fiberglass extension ladder (that was made in the US, at least the finished product - who knows, the rungs and stuff probably came from china) also fit well within the bill.

The hammer drill still works.

It's getting pretty hard to find anything american made here other than some high quality cutters and drill bits and such.

when I use something regularly, I'll follow the initial purchase with better stuff if needed. I'm less bothered by the DIY entry stuff than I am companies changing over domestic stuff to foreign origin, "unimproving it" a little bit and then keeping the price the same or higher at the same time.

Must admit that I don't care too much for tormek, either. the good is generally quality, but I had a supergrind in the past. They chrome plated the drive shaft and an expensive silicon carbide wheel froze to it. I'd had the "it's stuck" thing before but always managed to get the wheel loose and clean up the shaft, but the last wheel broke. $200 or something broken because tormek couldn't be bothered to spend another $5 to make the tool work properly. when I mentioned it to the rep here, he said "Oh, they recognize that's a problem and the new ones have a stainless shaft. You can buy an upgrade to fix yours, too".

Ghee, thanks. You sell a $650 or $700 machine, I blow up a $200 wheel on it and now I have the pleasure of having to buy the "upgrade".

(inexpensive blue ryobi hammer drill still works great. I've probably used it to drill 100 holes, and some of them, big ones. if anything, the quality gets in the way of buying up and making an indulgent purchase).

In my travels, I have encountered something that I suppose is expected, but maybe not commonly known....

Often, in Manufacturing, stuff that doesn't meet the specs for first quality product is sold off as seconds (or thirds, fourths, etc). Some of that comes directly from the factories while some comes from the folks receiving the shipments.

It is quite common with the Chinese stuff to buy in sea-tainer quantities to cut down on shipping costs, receive volume discounts, etc. What I saw happening was that perhaps 30% of the shipment did not meet spec or was damaged. The vendor was credited for the product, but was then responsible for disposal. Many of these fellows set up Ebay storefronts or local import sale schemes. They then graded all the fallout and sold it into its respective failing grade. Some worked, some didn't, and so forth. Often, this stuff had the original brand labels removed. Sometimes not.

Same for factory fallout. The cheese drillbits didn't pass "First quality," and were rejected. Some enterprising reseller picked up the deal and off they went. I picked up a discount pack of "Skil" brand high speed steel drill bits sort of like this sever years ago. They are all usable, but some are warped a bit, others were a little too short, others were machined off center, and so forth. As they broke, I replaced them with good bits so I have plenty for projects and such.

So for example, notice how you can get exact factory parts for everything on Alibaba? They are buying over-runs, factory fall out, and such, then disassembling it for parts and selling them.

All this is how they can sell it so cheap. There's nothing wrong with this, but it is how the world works.

Know what you're buying. Don't expect to get first quality at factory reject prices.

Originally Posted by Skew ChiDAMN!!

I've decided that there are 3 types of 'cheap tools.'

The first type will get the job done in a pinch and last just as long as it takes you to decide whether to buy a more permanent replacement or not.

The second type are almost identical to the first type, except they'll last forever. Rough in implementation, 'orrors in use, but well enough built that many a shed has one or two of these collecting dust, kept 'just in case.'

This one obviously falls into the third type: not fit for purpose, unless that purpose is purely as a display item. As Mr. Brush said, you've bought a tool-shaped object.

Sums it up nicely.

I have duplicates of some in the first class when I was working two or three hours away from home and it was quicker and cheaper and more profitable for me to buy a new one from the local Bunnings than waste half a day and $60 - $80 in fuel (being about twice the price of some Ozito gear) getting the one I already had at home but didn't expect to need on the job.

Most of those, being Ozito corded and the occasional corded and cordless Ryobi, have fallen into the second class and continued to work fine on many other jobs. Notably an Ozito electric jack hammer I bought about 12 or 13 years ago for a fair sized job at home and expecting it would fail and that would be fine with me because I could return it and get a refund. It's had an absolute thrashing since then in my business and still works pretty well. I've run into a fair few other people with the same experience with this tool.

And in the third category, my brilliant fail years ago in buying a mega-box of ridiculously cheap and supposedly titanium coated assorted size Craftright drill bits from Bunnings, on the basis that I'd just use them once or twice and throw them away rather than investing decent money into P&N or similar quality. This would have worked, if any of the Craftright bits could actually penetrate softwood, never mind drilling holes in timber.

New mantra for the cheap tool buyer - channelling Dirty Harry - ‘.Are you feeling lucky punk’