Brand Quality or Who Owns Which Brands?

[mason winston]

Thanks for reading! :)

I've read a few threads around here about previously respected name brands (Porter Cable, Delta, etc.) being taken over by other companies, Black & Decker for example, and essentially becoming shadows of their former selves.

The point of all of this is I'm wondering if anyone can post a list of the "corporate owners" and then the tool brands they now produce underneath? If I can really ask a lot, perhaps the list could be ordered from best quality to worst quality?

My personal interest in this is that I have a nine year old Milwaukee 14.4v cordless hammer drill/driver that will eventually have to be put out to pasture. I've always been a Milwaukee guy, and have made the best effort to buy their stuff whenever I can. Sooner than later, I'll be wanting a powered miter saw, router, jig saw...you know, a whole shop full of stuff eventually. ;)

I want to buy tools that are as high quality as my old 14.4v cordless.

[Matt Logana]

Delta, PC-> Delta Machinery

Dewalt, B&D-) Black and Decker

Craftsman-> Various (Steel City makes some, Ryobi makes some, Rikkon Makes some)

A few of the other brands I am unsure of.

[Howard Acheson]

Stanley Works and Black & Decker have merged into Stanley Black & Decker. You can go to their site and see all the brands they own.

http://www.stanleyblackanddecker.com/products-services/our-brands

The other major tool company owner is TTI. Here is something from their web site:

QUOTE

Techtronic Industries Co. Ltd. is a world-class leader in quality consumer and professional products marketed to the home improvement and construction industries. An unrelenting strategic focus on powerful brands, innovative products and exceptional people drives our success.

TTI's powerful brand portfolio includes Milwaukee®, AEG® and Ryobi® power tools and accessories, Ryobi® and Homelite® outdoor products, and Hoover®, Dirt Devil® and Vax® floor care appliances. Our products are distributed through major home centers and retailers, full-line tool distributors and other channels worldwide.

CLOSE QUOTE

TTI, through their subsidiary Ryobi, is also a major OEM manufacturer of products branded as Ridgid and Craftsman.

As you can see, TTI owns Milwaukee but they do allow Milwaukee to to design and manufacture their own tools.

[Gordon Harner]

It sounds to me that you will be adding or replacing your tools in the "future" what ever that is. Unfortunately, with the flux in the business, information that is accurate today will likely be obsolete tomorrow. The big companies are always playing with their offerings. They change manufacturing locations, part suppliers and even the markets that they target with their brand stable. As an example, Porter Cable used to be a top quality brand, apparently, their target market has changed more toward mass market. My suggestion is to check here and other tool reviews when it comes time to buy. From what I've seen, most of us are not really committed to one brand over another unless it is for cordless tools due to battery compatibility. Who knows maybe even festool may sell out. LOL.

[Rod Sheridan]

General made in Canada, high quality traditional machinery

General International, Owned by General, better quality Taiwanese equipment

Hammer product line of Felder, made in Austria

Oneida Made in USA

That's the extent of the machinery I own with the exception of some Milwaukee stuff like drills and a Sawzall, and they were made in the USA.

Regards, Rod.

[glenn bradley]

Save yourself some trouble. Brand loyalty is dead, buy the given tool based on its recent review and performance stats. I own a few tools that I would never buy the current version of. Fortunately with great forums like this and others you can find lots of friendly folks who enjoy telling you all the good and the bad.

[Chip Lindley]

...Brand loyalty is dead, buy the given tool based on its recent review and performance stats. I own a few tools that I would never buy the current version of.

Given the current degradation of once-solid labels which used to be "unquestionable industrial-quality", it is safe to say there is a loyalty to older models produced before the fall.

Give me a 15-year-old Porter Cable router, or a 25-year-old Delta stationary machine any day! Anything Powermatic in metallic gold is a keeper! Even Black & Decker and Skil made an "Industrial" line of hand tools in years past. Milwaukee and DeWalt have always been a staple of professional builders. Hopefully they won't slide down hill too.

[Harvey Melvin Richards]

Milwaukee and DeWalt have always been a staple of professional builders. Hopefully they won't slide down hill too.

Too late. Dewalt was actually a well respected manufacture of radial arm saws. They were bought out by B&D after they sold so much cheap crap a Walmart, Kmart, etc that their name became synonymous with crap.

Several Japanese toolmakers were taken to court in the early 90's (I think) for tool dumping in the US, that is selling tools for cheaper than they were made. Because of this some of their tools were unavailable for a while. B&D jumped on this a released Dewalt tools. Bright yellow to detract from what they really were. What they really were was B&D professional tools made in yellow. For the most part nothing was new, but they flooded the market with them.

[Thom Porterfield]

Save yourself some trouble. Brand loyalty is dead, buy the given tool based on its recent review and performance stats. I own a few tools that I would never buy the current version of. Fortunately with great forums like this and others you can find lots of friendly folks who enjoy telling you all the good and the bad.
Quoted for truth.

[Will Overton]

Harvey,

That was a great move on the part of Black & Decker, and proved that perception is half the battle. DeWalt tools were well accepted by the trades and could be seen on almost every construction site where I lived. The same folks who bad mouthed B&D were singing the praises of DeWalt. The same tools were sold as Craftsman Industrial, but Sears never caught on to differentiating their various tool grades.

[Paul Johnstone]

Unfortunately, Milwaukee was bought out by some other company a couple years ago.

I think Milwaukee is now producing a "value" line for Home Depot. I purchased a 1/2" chuck Milwaukee drill. It cost about $99.. I took it home, started drilling 1/8" thick steel. The bit caught. Normally, the drill either jerks itself out of your hand or the bit breaks. In this case, the shaft on the drill bent. :mad: This caused a lot of obvious runout. To HD's credit, they accepted the exchange, but I was really disappointed.

[Howard Acheson]

>>>> Unfortunately, Milwaukee was bought out by some other company a couple years ago.

If you scroll up to my prior posting, you will see that Milwaukee is not owned by TTI.

[Rod Sheridan]

Quoted for truth.

I don't know, I have a hard time imagining that anything you buy from Felder, MiniMax, SCMI etc is not going to be a top notch product.

Regards, Rod.

[Gary Herrmann]

I don't know, I have a hard time imagining that anything you buy from Felder, MiniMax, SCMI etc is not going to be a top notch product.

Regards, Rod.

Agree. I'll re-add Canadian General to that. I can speak personally to that brand and Minimax.

[scott spencer]

I agree with Glenn...far better to buy the tool than the brand these days.

The two Milwaukee routers I own are well built and powerful, but that's not sufficient reason to believe their cordless drills are any good....from what I read I suspect they are, but in general, the brand lines are blurred for sure.