cheap power tools - WOFTAM

[Zed]

I know I've committed the odd atrocity or two on this forum, (My favourite one being my rant about politicians, monarchists and rugby players - I still read that thread occasionally...) Anyway this rant is believe it or not on the preponderance of power tools that are absolute crap and are unashamedly cheaper than a packet of chips. I find it personally offensive that manufacturers actually subscribe to this type of market.

As far as i'm concerned this sort of sh*t manufacturing does nothing of value. All it does is:

1) encourage people who wouldn't normally be interested to either try to produce some crap trinket waste tiem and money or hurt themselves or bystanders in the process,

2) encourage tight **** rello's to buy some deserving individual a piece of crap because they want to show they care but the said individual will probably not want that peice of crap as "now that they have one" they cant convince thier SWMBO that they actually need / want a real one...

3) increase volumes of sales of hardware stores that should know better (I actually helped a little old lady who wanted to buy a 9 1/2 circ saw the other day for her son - of course she was looking at the GMC... when I asked her she said her son was a tradie who had his knocked off - why would he want a throw away in the first place ?? see point 2...)

4) increases the wastage in both raw materials (timber) and landfill when the peice of crap is thrown away. Buying a ozito batt drill for $19.95 that will last exactly 2 charges is not a bargain in my books. Lets face it batteries are bad news environmentally - we need to make sure that any we produce are of the highest quality so that maximum value is extracted from each unit otherwise we may as well be pouring lithium / mercury / carbon straight onto the great barrier reef! we are a very wasteful species you;d think in the 21st century we'd know that by now and compensate for it....

Who like me has walked through the tool section of thier local bunnies and seen the discards and returned crap in the corner of old ozito, gmc, ryobi bat drills, routers etc and thought : "If I bought three of them and re-built one and threw the rest away I could have one that works - maybe! bugger! Probably the best part of these units is the hard plastic case it comes in"

I encourage all my mates to buy the good gear or at least something reputable, power tools are like helmets - $2 helmet for a $2 head. Im always amazed by the tradies on this forum who say something like : "I'll buy the gmc compressor use it for a year and when it breaks I'll throw it way" what you never seem to say is : "for the year I've had it its been an irritable, unstable and largely useless peice of sh*t". you think that guys who can claim on tax would be buying ahd recommending the good gear!

The unfortunate thing is we are not long lived enough to see the damage we do and inflict on our future generations (Anyone seen the 60 minutes {?} story where the natives on some coral sea island were only now seeing the pollution of oil waste from the wrecks of ww2 50 yrs ago! they had thier war and f*cked off but left the waste and trouble for the future - the good thinkg is that the yanks actually pumped some of the wrecks empty. will ozito and gmc pay for unpoisoning landfills ? I think not....

Dont get me wrong other power tools degrade too but at least we get some use out of them first.....

Grrr!!!!!! :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

[LineLefty]

A few points on your reply. As an economist I think a bit of rationality needs to be put back into this debate.

There are 4 distinct grades of power tools.
a) Festo and other ridiculously,priced stuff $1k for a ROS?
b) Good stuff, Makita, Hitachi, Bosch, Dewalt, etc etc
c) Ryobi & GMC
d) Cheap crap (Ozito, Arlec, Champion, Supatool Powerforce)
Dont merge c & d together. D is for those that own need a cordless drill to hang 4 pritns on their apartment wall. C, now see is perfect for those that need a decent drill thats going to do light work for a few years. Professional/Trade? No but perfect for home shop use. Especially if, like me, you dont use them for final cutting. If you want to build fine furniture then you'll need a or b. But jeez, GMC are selling by the bucket loads. And if the market wants them, then they should be sold. I have a 1000w GMC power drill and it's fine. Why the hell would I pay $300 for one?

If you ask me, selling a cordless drill for $19.95 is just as ridiculous as a backyard sawdust maker spending $1000 on a Festool Sander. Worse in fact.

[KBnLink]

I've got some dirt cheap power tools that are still working fine after a number of years. I can't afford expensive stuff and am happy to persevere with what I have.

Tomorrow's Monday. Go to the chemist. Get a higher dosage medication

[PAH1]

A friend of my fathers bought three $15 dollar angle grinders for his farm at AgQuip some 5 or so years ago. He figured at that price if it fell apart it would not matter, after all this time he is still on the first one and it shows no sign of quitting.

There is plenty of crappy stuff about, but then again have a look at the catalogues and you will see plenty of stuff obviously made in the same factory for vastly different sums of money just because of brand name. If you follow the logic of the first post, then nobody should buy any table saw that is not some $10K plus monster as they are the only reliable ones, we would all have 26" bandsaws, there would only be 50"swing direct drive variable speed lathes with 8' between centres for some very inflated prices.

Diversity is good, even if it only enables you to say, "I am personally happy that I do not have any of this stuff". It is not worth someones while who only wants a sander to do one job to buy a festo.

[Markw]

To some extent I agree with Zed concerning the proliferation of NiCad and NiMH batteries back into landfill. At one stage the Fed Government proposed that users of batteries actually pay for the disposal (read salvage) of all batteries including automotive (except carbon torch style) as part of the cost of purchase. This seems to have died unfortuately. There are not that many situations where mains power is actually not available compared to the convienience of not having to run a power lead.

On the other hand Zed's rantings on cheap mains powered tools really cant be justified as the components of mains powered drills or saws etc can easily be recycled if the user saw fit to dispose of correctly, and the quality is only what you pay for.

The little old lady who wishes to purchase a new saw for her tradie son is in no better position if she were purchasing a new pair of work shorts at Best & Less, but I note that work clothes were not mentioned.

Lastly your view on people who should not be using said tools through lack of skill. How does one achieve any level of skill without first starting at the bottom, making mistakes and learning from them. If you think that unless suitably qualified by some elitest qualification, we should all be designated as Homer Simpsons, then this would be a very sad world.

Mark

[Bunyip]

All hail the holy market of a capitalist society and its divine powers ... it will always decide who wins and who looses

Regarding environmental impact, we are on the verge of incorporating whole of life cycle costs into products. Legislative mechanisms currently exist in most States. To a degree such costs are already factored into some products, such as motor cars, particularly o/seas.

A good idea if the money goes into R&D to reduce product environmental impact - and the gov't keeps its fat snout out!