Thread: What criteria do you use when shopping for tools?

I have chinese machines, tooling and so forth, there's no way I could afford to buy new Swiss or German machine tools... but there are often good quality second hand machines going for prices that are cheaper than Chinese, I'd prefer a mill that's rigid accurate, and built to a level of quality rather than built to a price.

Restoring quality machines is part of the process ( for me at least ), I much prefer a carefully restored Waldown drill press that's heavy as all get out, runs smooth quietly and accurately, to a new el-cheapo drill press from China that's light weight, wobbles, noisy and just plain ugly to use.

Give me a second hand Cincinnatti, Deckel, Aciera or Schaublin Mill anyday over any new Chinese Mill. ( I should throw in Rossi, or Ken will kill me.. ) ... not forgetting Vernier, Huron... and many others..

But that's just my criteria.

Ray

Mine is really simple.
If I am only going to use it once I will buy cheap tools. If I am going to use it more than once I buy good quality stuff regardless of price.
Paid dividends over my 50 year working career.

Roger

P.S. I always found it amazing when workmates wanted to borrow some of my tools and I refused, they got upset.
I did manage to convert one of them when he tried to do a job that my tools did with ease and he put himself in hospital when his broke.

Let me tell you a story. I am a big fan of Metabo corded handheld drills. That is why, when I needed a new battery drill 8 years ago, I choose Metabo again. Despite the pretty steep price tag. When the mail order arrived, I was extremely disappointed. Because the nameplate said "made in PRC". Had I known that before, never would I have bought it. I would never have spent $400 on a Chinese battery drill. Now, 8 years later, that drill still works like the first day. The two Li-Ion batteries perform like new. Never before have I had a battery drill last that long. Morale of the story: top grade tools can indeed be manufactured in China. Just do not expect them to be much cheaper than the best tools from Germany or Switzerland.

As for cheap Chinese made tools (cheap as in costing considerably less than a similar tools from "western" manufacture), these are in my personal experience often of inferior quality. The main problem being that the quality wildly varies in a wide band. For example, in the same set of drill bits, you may find a number of reasonably ok drills, a number of wrongly ground bits that cannot cut, and a number of wrongly heat treated bids that may unwind their spiral instead of breaking. In other words, you can not rely on a tool to perform in a certain way - you only find out when you try. And for many that is not good enough, because the workpiece may be worth more than a whole set of top grade drill bits of predictable performance.

Let me try another example. In aircrafts lives may depend on a bolt performing in a predictable way. That is why one single "aerospace grade" bolt may cost more than a top quality "Stahlwille" socket to suit. Why would one risk damaging such a bolt by using an inferior quality socket? Someone else said in a previous reply, that for infrequently used tools he would consider to buy cheap. I think that is a wrong way of thinking. The decision should not be based on how often a tool is used, but what for it is being used. Even if a given size is only to be used once a year, it makes a huge difference if it is being used to tighten a bolt in an agri harvester or in an airplane. If the tool has to serve univerasally, it should be choosen to suit the most demanding task, and not the other way around. There are tasks that cannot be done properly with cheap tools, but one can always (ab)use a good tool for simple jobs.

Originally Posted by RayG

Not my problem..

I have chinese machines, tooling and so forth, there's no way I could afford to buy new Swiss or German machine tools... but there are often good quality second hand machines going for prices that are cheaper than Chinese, I'd prefer a mill that's rigid accurate, and built to a level of quality rather than built to a price.

Restoring quality machines is part of the process ( for me at least ), I much prefer a carefully restored Waldown drill press that's heavy as all get out, runs smooth quietly and accurately, to a new el-cheapo drill press from China that's light weight, wobbles, noisy and just plain ugly to use.

Give me a second hand Cincinnatti, Deckel, Aciera or Schaublin Mill anyday over any new Chinese Mill. ( I should throw in Rossi, or Ken will kill me.. ) ... not forgetting Vernier, Huron... and many others..

But that's just my criteria.

Ray

Ray,
You forgot my great lump of a beast!!!!!!!!!!!
My Brown and Sharpe Universal horizontal/vertical monster.

Originally Posted by matthew_g

Ray,
You forgot my great lump of a beast!!!!!!!!!!!
My Brown and Sharpe Universal horizontal/vertical monster.

My apologies, how could I have missed. Nothing beats the satisfaction and feeling you get from using a heavy, rigid and accurate quality machine.

Ray

Originally Posted by RayG

I'm starting to suspect that you are just trolling.. Ray

What gave you the first clue???? FWIW I bought a brand new Kingcrome 19mm ring/open end spanner today and butchered it into a thin walled tube spanner. I tried to do that with a cheap cast Chinese one and it snapped through the weakened ring section. The reason for this butchery - the *Spanish* in their infinite design wisdom put an oil drain plug in their marine g/box in such a place that the only way of undoing the attached drain pipe is a special thin walled tube spanner, so I made one. It was faster than making a 'special' new drain plug, which was Plan B. So my criteria are fitness for purpose, quick availability and price. I don't give a damn about country of origin although criterion 1 may well rule some out on the grounds of past experience. Cheap mills come to mind for some reason. PDW

Ray G.

You were very safe The only thing I have been killing up to a fortnight ago is time. Starting to feel a bit more dangerous now after a few days visiting the cardiac ward at St Vincents. Amazing what a bit of blood flow does. Anyway; I hope the new stents were not made in the RPC. I wonder where the old crushed 2 came from??
And my criteria for these "accessories" is that they must be the best available/ top of the range. Especially when the health fund is wearing the cost.


Ken

Wow this thread is getting interesting! Who would have thought?

Well, to add my 2 cents worth, I certainly have a criteria but I have never really tried to put it into words. I prefer good quality name brand used over new any day. A few reasons for this, I like the idea of saving a machine tool from the scrap yard and I like the idea of a piece of history in my shed. I also like the romance of the older type of machine tools and feel that they were build to do a job primarily and not built to a price necessarily. If they need fixing, then so be it as long is the repair falls within the capabilities of my skills and my machines & tooling. In fact, one way to find a real bargain is to look for a machine that you think you can repair and that others would consider to be out of their capabilities or would not normally bother to repair.

In terms of tooling, I have bought lots of Chinese tooling. Some of it I have been happy with and some have turned out to be paper weights. In some ways I envy members here who can justify spending the bucks on all top quality tooling, but then if I did that, I would put pressure on myself to get a financial return on the investment and turn my hobby into an income. When that happens, I'll ruin a good hobby.

Problem with Chinese tooling and machines, it's hit and miss. I have heaps of Chinese stuff, all my ER collets are Chinese, my boring head, face head, parallels, etc. etc. All have been OK. Then, recently I bought a couple of HSS parting off blades and have not been able to use them. They cut for the first mm or 2 and then they burn and dull like it's made of fencing wire. My first thought was that I must have ground them wrong, so I did it again. Same result. In desperation, I put them on the T&C G and ground them freakin perfectly and still they turned to cheese! Forget about not lasting very long, they didn't even cut once. I have a small piece that is too small for all but the smallest diameter work, it's made in the UK, I put that in and it cut like butter. It's this type of performance that really leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I'm not sure how many more times I will put up with such results before I just don't bother with Chinese and just buy "name brand" HSS blanks. I don't seem to break part off blades anymore so I can probably justify better quality steel!

The other thread regarding a TM25V is another classic example of hit and miss quality control. I dar say that if the supplier/factory in China was good to deal with then the seller here would be more inclined to want to help as he would know that he would get a credit from the supplier.

Simon

Originally Posted by cba_melbourne

Sounds like you do have a problem here. You seem (erroneously) to think that all Chinese tools are cheap, and nasty. And therefore you feel (erraneously) that everybody must be bashing you because you like Chinese tools.

I have a similar problem with SOME Chinese tools in that I am not confident I will always get value for money, or a tool that has basic fitness for purpose. As was mentioned well known name brands that we trusted for years have gone over to China and the results, I feel, have been a mixed bag as far as quality and fitness for purpose and/or longevity.Not the fault of the Chinese but of the parent companies that set the specs.

I used one of the very first Makita 10mm single speed corded electric hand drills to drill a hole in 50mm steel plate and was amazed it got barely warm in comparison to the Black and Decker drill we had.We worked next door to a dealer for Makita and it was a case of "hey try this one out". The modern day Makita equivalent made in China would not be capable of this sort of performance.I don't blame the Chinese for that either by the way,thats down to Makita .
The other thing that has emerged with with the bigger electric power tool companies is the handyman and tradesman qualities of tool- Ok pay more and get more.

Indeed I too, have purchased Chinese made tools that have surprised me.I too purchased a Ozito SDS type drill for a one off job as it was cheaper than the Kennards hire price. The trouble is, it can be difficult at times to pick what is good and whats not and frequently I get caught out.

All I can do is look at every specification I can get my hands for a particular tool /item and base that against the price asked.Sometimes if an item too cheap I don't buy but still manage to get caught on occasion.

I have currently got to replace all of the part bins that came with a Chinese mobile parts bin stand.It was not cheap at $200 After several years the plastic bins have degraded to the point where when I threw in a part ,the bottom fell out of the bin.
Older Australian made Fischer parts bins are still fine.That the sort of thing that pees me off and pushes me away from the Chinese made no brand stuff. Theres no identifiable bench mark of any sort for these types of products.

If the quality was to be improved I would be quite happy to pay extra but I think we are locked in to replacing products for the foreseeable future from the Chinese(should we choose to buy them)
Maybe a Chinese quality standard needs to be set like the Japanese have.

Originally Posted by Grahame Collins

..............
I used one of the very first Makita 10mm single speed corded electric hand drills to drill a hole in 50mm steel plate and was amazed it got barely warm in comparison to the Black and Decker drill we had.We worked next door to a dealer for Makita and it was a case of "hey try this one out". The modern day Makita equivalent made in China would not be capable of this sort of performance.I don't blame the Chinese for that either by the way,thats down to Makita .
The other thing that has emerged with with the bigger electric power tool companies is the handyman and tradesman qualities of tool- Ok pay more and get more.............

Reminds me of the original 4" Makita angle grinders the came on the market in the early to mid 70s. Maybe $40 or $50 back then, don't know what that is in todays money.
That thing was awesome, you could not stall it - the power lines out in the street would be sagging from current draw and that little Makita would keep plugging away.
It died when it was 25 years old.

Originally Posted by Toggy

Ray G.
You were very safe The only thing I have been killing up to a fortnight ago is time. Starting to feel a bit more dangerous now after a few days visiting the cardiac ward at St Vincents. Amazing what a bit of blood flow does. Anyway; I hope the new stents were not made in the RPC. I wonder where the old crushed 2 came from??
And my criteria for these "accessories" is that they must be the best available/ top of the range. Especially when the health fund is wearing the cost.
Ken

Good to hear you are on the mend... go to watch out for those cheap stents... ( hope they don't buy their medical supplies on ebay... )

Originally Posted by Bob Ward

Reminds me of the original 4" Makita angle grinders the came on the market in the early to mid 70s. Maybe $40 or $50 back then, don't know what that is in todays money.
That thing was awesome, you could not stall it - the power lines out in the street would be sagging from current draw and that little Makita would keep plugging away.
It died when it was 25 years old.

Snap... I also got a 4" makita angle grinder back in the early 70's and it lasted until just a few years back, since then I've burnt out several cheaper brands, Ryobi, OzIto, Makita... haven't killed one since upgrading to Metabo 5" The Metabo looks like it's going to last the distance.


Ray

I don't own any Starret stuff...... except a square? but if I remember it's not actually square anyway... and Starret are junk since they moved their manufacturing to China, I do have a fake Mitutoyo DTI... but I'd happily show you a decent Mercer dial gauge I got at auction, and if you ask nicely and have clean hands I'd let you look at a Compaq dial gauge that a kind forum member sent me, in return for a favour. Currently I have a number of Mahr Millimess I got at auction, I'd probably give you one of those for free... very smooth 1 micron resolution.

I'd like an Interapid DTI if you are cleaning out your metrology drawers of low quality swiss gear.. Do you happen to be throwing out a Weiler or Tesa Frame Level, I want one of those too.

So, now, tell me what DTI you like best and why?

Ray

PS.. Not that it's at all relevant, but since you asked. My TV is a big plasma that I got for nothing, it was abandoned by it's previous owner because it stopped working, I replaced a $25 power supply PCB and hey presto. I don't care where it was made, so long as it keeps working I'm happy.

I haven''t read the whole thread! here's how I have always done mine even when earning $$.

Do I need it? If yes then move to next.

How many time will I use it? If more than once its more than likely its bought.

Is it value for $$$? I prefer name brand tools but not always practical or financially viable as it depends on how often its used.

I do buy impulse buys of tools often still something I can use but has to be a bargain or soemthing worthy of restoration/collection I am NOT an avid collector.


I could have spent big time yesterday at Sydney Antique Machinery Show not just tools but a few stationary and other equipment caught my eye.

Hi th62,

I'm curious, do you buy Chinese because you believe it's cost effective or do you buy because you think they make the best quality tools?

Like I mentioned above, I have a fair amount of Chinese tools but I don't buy them thinking they are the best, or even equal. I buy because I'm either too tight or can't justify the expense of the better quality brands and feel that the cheaper tools will still perform the task. Even when I find a Chinese tool that performs "well", it's still nowhere near as good as it's more expensive counterpart.

Another question if I may, if Chinese tools were the same price as the more expensive brands, would you still purchase the Chinese brand over the others? For me, the answer is very, very obvious but then I'm not everyone.

PS. everyone take a chill pill!

Cheers,

Simon