Howdy,
On Sun, 23 Nov 2003, old dirtbeard wrote:
> Buy quality. Buy it once. Enjoy it for life. You owe
> it to yourself not to own shit tools.
I don't completely disagree with this attitude, but I also don't think its
complete. I run into some folks with this idea that have a few really
good tools (set of snap-on phillips head or whatever), but _don't_ have
the proper tool for the job... Because they can't afford to buy snap-on
(or whatever) and so they don't get anything.
Like lots of things in life, I think you can take it too far. And
everyone's got a different income level, ability to deal with irritation
level, ability to stop work to fix/replace the tool level, etc.
For me, I'll buy non-precision stuff like hammers, jackstands etc. from
Harbor Freight. I'll also buy tools that are new to me from them, as I
frequently think a tool looks interesting, but don't know how well it and
I will work together in real life. If it ends up being something I use a
lot (or if I know ahead of time that I'll use it a lot), I typically buy a
name US brand.
Airtools are a good example of this. My die grinders are garbage, because
I don't use them a ton. My 1/2" impact is the venerable IR 231 because I
do (btw, while I'm sure that powerful no-name impacts exist out there,
I don't know how to tell them apart from the shit ones). My battery
powered 1/2" impact is Milwaukee, etc.
Not that name necessarily means a damn thing. My cheapo Ryobi chop saw
cuts better than my DeWalt (though the DeWalt has a better stop/guide
adjusting system).
Before I adopted this approach, I did things like buy a high dollar CP
3/8" butterfly impact. I think I've used it three times. That really
should have been a $35 cheapo until I figured out if I liked using it.
The other nice thing with this approach is that if I use the tool a lot
(and therefore replace it with a name one), I'll have a spare if one
breaks.
But... To each his/her own. This approach works for me.
Mark
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