Craftsman ?

[Mike Holbrook]

I am wondering if Craftsman has always been a Sears tool label? I see lots of quite old tools that are labeled Craftsman and I am not sure if these tools were made by the same company that makes Sears tools today?

[Greg Wease]

"Craftsman" is a Sears trademark but many different companies have manufactured products for Sears with that label. Any specific products in mind?

[Mike Holbrook]

I see a good number of chisels with the name on them. I also won a saw at auction with a faint etch that says it is Spring Steel, Craftsman, Highest Quality...The handle on this saw is weird. It may not be wood. Although it looks like wood it has a sort of plastic/composite texture.

[Jim Koepke]

I see a good number of chisels with the name on them.

I have a few of these. They are not my best chisels, but they still get used a lot.

jtk

[Mike Holbrook]

I am just wondering if Craftsman is a manufacturing company that made/makes tools for other companies or something of the sort. I think many of the Borg tools are made under contract with a second party. I am not sure if Craftsman was a high quality tool maker at some time in the past, sort of like Stanley? I did not know the saw I bought was a Craftsman tool. It took me quite a while to figure it out from a faint etch. The saw is Spring Steel which I thought generally suggested a quality tool? The saw did not list a manufacturer at the auction. It has the emblem on the handle that just says "Warranted Superior". It looked like it had the Disston quality guarantee etched on the upper part of the saw, but now that I study it, I think the wording may be a little different.

The chisels I see look similar to Stanley's work, but I am not sure if the quality of the tools is more than skin deep? Sounds like Jim thinks they are average.

[Chris Vandiver]

The name "Craftsman" is a trademark for tools that Sears sells. Sears started out as a hardware store, way back when and have never made their own tools. Many different tool manufacturers, like Stanley, Disston, Sargent and Miller Falls have produced tools for Sears branded with the "Craftsman" logo. Having the term "spring steel" etched on a saw plate doesn't necessarily mean that a saw is high quality.

[Zach Dillinger]

Greg's post above is correct. Craftsman is not a manufacturer and never has been, to my knowledge. Other large companies (Sargent, Stanley, Millers Falls, etc.) made tools that were branded as Craftsman for resale specifically at Sears. One brand that is like you are describing is Lakeside, about whom we recently had an interesting discussion on the Old Tools list about. Started as a legitimate manufacturer of tools that sold only to Montgomery Wards, but the company eventually phased the trademark into only a name, using other companies (like Craftsman did) to make tools for them.

EDIT: Darn it Chris, you beat me by five minutes with the same info. Curse my slow typing!

[Chris Vandiver]

Greg's post above is correct. Craftsman is not a manufacturer and never has been, to my knowledge. Other large companies (Sargent, Stanley, Millers Falls, etc.) made tools that were branded as Craftsman for resale specifically at Sears. One brand that is like you are describing is Lakeside, about whom we recently had an interesting discussion on the Old Tools list about. Started as a legitimate manufacturer of tools that sold only to Montgomery Wards, but the company eventually phased the trademark into only a name, using other companies (like Craftsman) to make tools for them.



EDIT: Darn it Chris, you beat me by five minutes with the same info. Curse my slow typing!


Wasn't Lakeside another hardware concern? Montgomery Wards?

[Zach Dillinger]

Wasn't Lakeside another hardware concern? Montgomery Wards?

Yes, Chris. They were a company that was formed by Montgomery Wards executives to manufacture tools for their exclusive sale. Eventually, it became clear that the cost of manufacturing was higher than the cost of rebadging other companies tools. It really was an interesting discussion we had.

What I was saying is that the only company I'm aware of that did what Mike was describing was Lakeside. I realize now that my post on Lakeside wasn't clear. I wasn't saying that Craftsman or Sears had anything to do with Lakeside. Just using them as an example.

[george wilson]

Sears just made deals with who ever to make their Craftsman tools. Their 6" open sided thickness planer(which I owned one for a short time in the 60's. It worked very well when properly sharpened) was made by Seeley(the thermos bottle maker). I think Seeley also made their 6" jointer,and their drill press. I still have my 1963 floor model. I think Seeley also made their 12" wood lathe. I demonstrated Sears power tools at Christmas in 1963-64. I never liked that tubular bed lathe.

Parks made their 12" planer and 18" planer,and their 18" bandsaw.

Atlas made their 12" Metal lathe,and their little milling machine,and a little 7" metal shaper. I have owned all. Best to avoid them!! Montgomery Wards fared MUCH better with their lathe,made by Logan,which was a real,if rather light,machine. I owned one of them,too,in the 80's. I found one for my step father. When he died,I got it back,and sold it to a friend as I had no room for it. It was similar to South Bend in quality. At least it had roller bearings in the spindle. Lots of South Bends had bronze bearings that you'd better keep well oiled.

In the 70's or 80's,Craftsman chisels were Dutch made. They scored the lowest in a FWW chisel test. They had only .50% carbon in their blades,just barely enough carbon to harden,but very poor wear resistance. Parks made their 12" and 18" thickness planer,and 18" bandsaw.

They sold "chrome Clad" files back in the 50's and 60's. I did not like them at the time. They didn't seem sharp enough. Might have been a good idea,though. Rio Grande Jeweler's Supplies now sells "Valtetian" needle files which are especially for hard metals,like platinum. I ordered some,and they look hard chrome plated to me. Chrome IS a very hard metal. I used to have to re grind HSS drill bits a few times when drilling through chrome plated pot metal Gibson banjo resonator flanges. I made a bunch of banjos in the late 50's and 60's.

[Greg Wease]

To add another Craftsman story, Sears "Craftsman" contractor saws were made by Emerson Electric for many years. Then Sears asked them to reduce cost, and therefore quality, and they refused. So Sears went to China and Emerson contracted with Home Depot to make their Rigid table saws. This seems to be the trend for Sears over time--keep dumbing down their products for better margins and poorer performance. Sad.

[Bill Houghton]

To respond to your kind of underlying question, some of the Craftsman-branded tools are quite good - even some of their second lines, like Dunlap, can be pretty respectable. Some of them are suitable for opening paint cans, keeping doors from closing, discouraging varmints (by throwing the tools at the varmints), etc. Until you get sophisticated about quality indicators, it's really hard to tell, as you hold a Craftsman-badged tool in your hands, on which end of the range it sits.

Craftsman changed its logo several times since it started selling tools in the early part of the 20th century; this just adds to the confusion for a newcomer to old tools. If you find one with the early, kind of scrolly, script logo, your odds of having a decent tool are pretty good; but these aren't common.

[george wilson]

Oh,yes,earlier is better. I saw somewhere in a tool auction online,a set of Sears socket chisels that looked like those new Stanley 750's(?),or old Greenlees. They must have been from the 30's or 40's.

[Mike Holbrook]

Thanks for the info. guys, pretty much what I thought the case was, although I was hoping that there might have actually been a Craftsman tool manufacturer back there somewhere. I bought an unmarked saw for $11 at auction so I am not real worried about it. I was gambling that I got a good deal on a saw made by Disston, which it may still be. The etch is almost gone but parts of the etch and the handle look like Disston work.

I guess I will stay away from the Craftsman chisels, although I saw a few that looked like old Stanley 750's. I guess Stanley may have made a version of those chisels for Sears at some point but as was mentioned it is entirely possible that the steel would be a much lower quality.

[Jim Koepke]

I guess I will stay away from the Craftsman chisels, although I saw a few that looked like old Stanley 750's. I guess Stanley may have made a version of those chisels for Sears at some point but as was mentioned it is entirely possible that the steel would be a much lower quality.

If they are cheap enough, they may be worth having for any rough work. I use mine all the time and they are some newer bright and shiny chrome vanadium finish jobs.

jtk

[Al Weber]

I have a set of the Dunlap socket chisels I inherited from my Dad. They probably date back to the late 40s or 50s. They are marked as made in Germany and are actually very high quality steel. Most of the Craftsman tools earlier than the late 70s were of fair or better quality but after that I think it is kind of a crap shoot.

[george wilson]

I'd go back much farther than the 70's. Maybe more like the 40's or early 50's to ascribe better quality. It was in the 70's or 80's that the FWW chisel tests stated that Craftsmen chisels,made then in Holland,were only half of 1% carbon content,which is deplorably low. They would barely harden,but would not hold an edge well at all with that carbon content.