Cheap tools

[chook]

I was given a gift voucher for christmas, redeemable at Bunnings. What I wanted was 1000 no 2 biscuits but all they had was small packets of 50 for some ridiculous price. So I bought an Ozito ROS, with the voucher instead. Now I know that in life you mostly get what you pay for and perhaps the thing will not last all that long, but not necessarily.

A few years ago I bought 6 elecric drills for about $35 each for the school. After 2 years of use (and some abuse) they are still working fine. They have been used to drill concrete. They have been used every day to drill timber and run screw driver bits. They have drilled steel. The agriculture people were borrowing them all year. I only recently found out that they were using them to drive long roofing screws into hardwood. Why I do not know. And as I write they are still working well. If they all up and died immediately then they would owe us nothing.

Undoubtedly there are some rubbish tools about pretending to be bargains. But maybe some of the cheap tools are good value.

The ROS seems to be okay. It runs quietly (no bearing noises yet) and with no vibration. It sands cleanly. It also may turn out to be value. It comes with a 3 year warranty but I doubt that that is serious. But for about $40 on a gift voucher there was not much to lose.

The other thing I was given for christmas was a GMC dust extractor. The thing seems designed to work with portable tools such as sanders, biscuit joiners and routers.It comes with a very long hose. There is a power point on the side which will accomodate tools up to 1200 watts. It appears to be made to a price but in the little trials I have given it thus far it seems to work okay. Time will tell.

But my experience with the drills has taught me that cheap does not always mean nasty.

[echnidna]

I agree that some cheap tools are excellent value for money, but separating the crap from the good value units is tough. So I generally settle for GMC or supercheap stuff as they at least have good guarantees.

[bitingmidge]

I also love the cheap side of things for disposables, but am just busting for my ROS to die again (Bosch - fixed last year for $65.00 but less than a new one!).

It's done a heap of work, and I think it's fantastic till I use a Rupes or Festo!!

Next time maybe..... but I hate to think how much work it's done at less than a quarter the price.

P

[gatiep]

For a few years I made signs and fairly regularly had a cordless drill take off on a flight while we were high up on a ladder. Their preferred landing ( irrespective of purchase price ) was on the chuck, with the result a cracked casing. Normally they don't work too well or at all after such a landing. I started buying cheaper n cheaper drills. A while ago I bought a 20.4Volt Ozito variable speed with hammer action.This has a fair quality chuck for a cheapie, was about $99-00. It's max speed is nothing to get excited about but the torque is excellent for the first 9.375491 seconds ( ie less than 10 secs ) by which time the battery is struggeling to supply .1 Volt. It has a tester to show battery charge while operating. Well what a waste, altough very accurate, because buy the time one has pulled the trigger and pushed the tester switch it shows next to buggerall, which is a true reflection of the battery state. The second battery is just as bad and if charged and left for 3 days, they are almost flat to start with.Unfortunately I lost my receipt so cannot claim the 100 year warranty. It has 17 N cells in each battery pack. Now if the good N cells wern't so expensive, it would really make for a nice cordless with lots of grunt, but it would be cheaper to buy another new drill.

Take heart....there are some gear that is not too expensive and works reasonably well, I believe!

[JackG]

I would love to only have high quality tools but it is pretty hard to justify for occasional use. Generally what I do is spend a bit more money for the tools that have a blade as where prescision is more important. Tools like angle grinders or drills are not as critical as a saw of any sort. I found out the hard way that cheap ROS's do not work properly and being a finishing tool it is also worth ot buy a good one.

At work we had two floors completely refurbished and at times it was a very busy place where there would be 40 odd workers of various trades. I was surprised to see how many tradesmen were using GMC cordless drills but I did not see any cheap power saw.

[chook]

I sincerely hope that at least one cheap ROS (mine) works properly.

So far as I know the makita 9 1/4 inch power saw is used by every builder in the world. And for the obvious reason that it is indestructable. I have owned one for about 10 years. When I die, at some far distant time hopefully,I will hand it on to my son.

The one time when buying a cheap tool is almost always going to be a problem is with cordless drills. I have never seen a good cheap one and as a previous post says the problem is the battery. Electric drills seem to be another matter though. I was once given an old black and decker drill. It was used, among other things, to build a shed. Now when you build a shed it is necessary to drop the drill from the roof at least once, but taking no chances the drill was dropped several times. The thing worked hard for a long time before finally dying an honorable death.

[Dean]

I bought one of those 12v KK2 cordless drills from Supercheap when they were clearing them out a while ago. Wasn't for me, was for my boy who thinks it is the best present ever... well he's only 2.5 and I do supervise him with it, but the $20 plastic toy drill I got him a few months ago died after the first day. At least this one will last him a while, even if it has no guts

I also bought one of the KK2 corded hammer drills for $12 also to lend out to the family whenever they ask for one (they aint getting my expensive drills) and it surprisingly has already lasted 12 months of fairly solid use :eek:

[TOMARTOM]

Chook, I presume you are a teacher. where I live the teacher has access to the manual arts section for use as a woodworking club, meeting once a month. Have you considered the use of the Manual Arts section for you and others use. This would further allow you (and others) to use equipment that otherwise be outside your budget, ie thicknessers lathes etc.

regards tony

[chook]

Chook, I presume you are a teacher. where I live the teacher has access to the manual arts section for use as a woodworking club, meeting once a month. Have you considered the use of the Manual Arts section for you and others use. This would further allow you (and others) to use equipment that otherwise be outside your budget, ie thicknessers lathes etc.

regards tony

Tony,
Thank you very much for your kind suggestion,but you may rest assured that what ever my little school lacks it is certainly not equipment in the furnishings department of man arts. Somebody has truly said that if you can find out what you enjoy doing and find a way to make money from it then you will never have to work another day in your life. Well I love teaching (21 years of it), timber and tools and so for me man arts is the best job in the world.I have a long standing and serious case of tool addiction. (If you listen closely some days you might hear me complain but I am just having a whinge those times and any such noises are best ignored.)

Most of the schools I have worked at have been older, bigger and well established. But the school I am at now is not so. Three years ago they established a man arts department. The man who handles the purse came to me and said "Chook, here is $50000 go and buy some machinery". So buy some machinery I did. We set up a very good workshop on a budget by building a basic steel framed shed (very big) . Then we lined it and fitted it out ourselves. For example I was quoted $1500 per 4 station work bench, bare of vices. We cut the timber off the property and I built 6 work benches for less than $1000.Good but solid hard wood framed things that will outlast me. Anyway the money we saved all went into equiping the place. We have bandsaws, drill presses, lathes,a 12 inch sliding table saw bench, SCMS, linishers, disk sanders, routers, 15 inch thicknesser ,8 inch planner etc etc. Building and setting the place up was one of the most challenging, tiring and satisfying things I have ever done. We can teach the furnishing strands of VET very successfully with the equipment we have. I have worked in commercial workshops that were hardly better equipped. And we have a full set of quality hand tools for each student. If I sound a bit proud if it then so be it. I am. It is a fine place in which to work.

BUT in all the getting quotes (the difference between the cheapest and dearest quote was nearly $6000) I forgot to buy enough electric drills. Hence the cheapies.

They other thing which I have not yet done properly is the ducting and diposal of dust. We have good dust extractors but they are not being used efficiently.


When man arts first began the classes were small. The kids had no idea really what was on offer. Next year (2005) there is a waiting list to get into junior wood work and about half of the students are girls. But now I am short on screw drivers. I will be getting good ones, probably Stanley or Sidchrome.

But hey I am on HOLIDAYS and I need my beauty sleep.

[DavidG]

Picked up a 14.4 v GMC cordless drill from BigW for $30.00 a little while back.
Comes in a kit with 2 batteries and about 100 bits and pieces.

Used it today for the first time seriously. Putting a shed together.
I took the Makita as well.

The thing ran all day on one battery drilling and screwing in lots of screws.
I was supprised as I had expected only half an hour or so of use before I would have needed the second battery.
Works fine . One of the best $30 I have spent in a while.

[sailingamerican]

It is fun reading your post in Australia. My wife is an Aussie.
Here in the US we have so many more brands to choose from than you have. I know you can go on line but you have no idea what cheap is until you hit the swap meets selling new junk tools. When it comes to drills most cheep ones have very poor quality batteries. They do not hold a charge. They just have enough windings to durn the drill. I do not know if Milwaukee sells tools in Australia. I bet they do. Their drills are the best in the world bar none. They do not make a bad tool. I think Bosh is 1% better but not on their drills. Eu tools are very high in price, hard to get parts for them and cost ... to get repaired. You are luck with the drills. 99% of the cheep ones are junk. You do get what you pay for. I have been collecting tools for 40 years. If your school has a need for good hand tools let me know I will donate $500 worth to the school. We get to Sydney every year. I can bring them and ship them from there or you can pick them up. Just let me know what you need. I have a lot of good hand planes and drills. If you have special need let me know and I am sure I can find what you are looking for.
Richard You can reach me at [email protected]

[GCP310]

i work for a fairly large joinery company doing design and production. we have everything from large CNC routers and Beam saws right down to your typical hand laminate trimmer. so you can say i see it from a large scale where you would think that you would only buy quality when time and money is concerned. out of the whole place do you know what gives us the most greif? Our italian made [read expensive] Selco beamsaw followed by its sister CNC router.

i agree with alot of memebers here that it would be nice to have the festool range, but seriously, unless you use it 10 hours a day 5 days a week, the cheaper brands will suffice. its knowing what to pick and choose that counts. for instance if you use it all the time,i.e cordless drill, buy a decnt one. but if you use it to break up a peice of concrete in the yard and may never use it again, buy the cheap option.

probably what i am tyring to say is, expensive tools breakdown too. replacement warranty is everything.

G