DeWalt survey

[Jerome Stanek]

I just got a survey from DeWalt that was all about Craftsman tools. Is that a sign that they are going to take over the Craftsman name.

[Alex Mielko]

Didn't Stanley Black & Decker bought Craftsman not that long ago?

[Ted Baxter]

DeWalt is owned by Stanley Black & Decker as well as Porter Cable they own a lot of tool brands and yes they did buy Craftsman tools for more than $900,000,000

[George Bokros]

Yes Sears sold the Craftsman name to B&D a year or so back to raise money to stave off bankruptcy.

[Jim Andrew]

The craftsman name is poison to the woodworking community. They screwed up buying that brand.

[Paul K. Johnson]

Every B&D tool I've had has been crap too. If that brand is on it I don't even look at it.

[Jerome Stanek]

Every B&D tool I've had has been crap too. If that brand is on it I don't even look at it.

I have had some good B&D tools their early cordless drills were great and I still have one of their reciprocating saws.

[Peter Kuhlman]

I don't believe Craftsman was ever a manufacturer of anything. They just negotiated with various tool companies to produce items to their price point and specs. Over the years they have sold Dewalt, Porter Cable, Rikon and many other brands under the Craftsman name. Most people getting started with tools unless they had friends family in the know started life with Craftsman branded items and quickly moved to better quality tools later in life. I did. Craftsman was the only tool brand name I knew until I started attending woodworking shows and reading magazines.

Now I avoid Craftsman branded products almost completely although I did purchase the 10" bandsaw that Rikon makes from Sears as it closed down.

[Ed Labadie]

The craftsman name is poison to the woodworking community. They screwed up buying that brand.

I'll go along with the first statement, not the second.

The Craftsman name has brand loyalty like no other, their buyers don't know any better, they've never used a Unisaw or PM66 etc. The C-man brand provides a good value (in their eyes) for a tool that gets used 2 times a year.

The hand tools have always been a good bang for the buck, especially when on sale. Hopefully SBD will bring production back to the USA.

Women buy C-man tools for gifts like crazy, because they know the name and feel comfortable with it.

Don't forget about the huge OPE market C-man has, all for same reasons mentioned. People are happy to get 5 years out of a riding mower, think it was good, go buy another.

Ed

[glenn bradley]

The craftsman name is poison to the woodworking community.

And B&D is not? :D Look what happened to Porter-Cable. If I hold my breath long enough will pride in product and practices come back?

[Bruce Page]

Most pre-internet wood workers started with Craftsman tools and machinery and many still make fine furniture today using them. I have a 30+ year old ½” corded drill motor that will drill with the best of them. My 200 piece mechanics set that I bought when I was 17 still gets the job done.
To call the name poison is a bit strong.

[Ted Baxter]

I have a 40+year old craftsman circular saw I used 2 days ago it still works fine.

I also have a 20year old craftsman belt/disk sander I use for sharping scrapers for wood turning as well as other things still works fine.

I also have a 1/2 Black & Decker drill I bought in a pawn shop 20 or so years ago it still works fine.

I think both brands have made tools that were in the price range of people that other tool companies don't.

I don't shop for them today but I have in the past and I have a tool chest full of CM socket and screw drivers that i bought more than 40 years ago and they still work.

PS i also buy Grizzly power tools hope that doesn't get me thrown off the fourm:)

[Jerry Wright]

Interesting comments. The mass market for power tools has a broad distribution of price points, users and needs. HF to Fein, Kobalt to Snap-on. We are sometimes quick to call tools "junk". Some buy tools for professional use while I would guess the vast majority of tools are sold for casual, hobbyist use and wIll last a very long time. I still have a myriad of Craftsman tools bought over a 50 year span. They all work today. I am pleased to see someone carry the trademark forward.

If most of us want to to hear the word "junk" unpleasantly applied, enter a project in a juried competition:)

[Roy Turbett]

Craftsman used to be very good tools and they came with a lifetime guarantee. But when they went down, they went down fast. I remember taking an old ratchet back that was very smooth until I broke it after years of use and the salesman reached in a drawer and handed me a cheap replacement with plastic insides that was so stiff it would drive a nut back on that I was trying to take off. I still have the original sockets but had my wife buy me a new Snap-on ratchet for Christmas.

I also have a collection of 50's vintage Craftsman woodworking machines that are well made. However, my early 80's Craftsman RAS was lacking to say the least and doesn't come close to my 50's vintage DeWalt GWI.

Yesterday, I tuned up a Craftsman hand plane that someone gave me that appears to be fairly new. While the frog was milled flat, the bed wasn't and required some filing so the frog wouldn't rock. The machining wasn't nearly as good as that on my 1888 Stanley Type 5 or any of my other Stanley planes up to my Type 19.

In short, its a brand I used to rely on but don't even consider today.

[Dick Brown]

I have an assortment of Craftsman stuff along with most other brands you can name . Seems older is better in a lot of cases. Folks badmouth DeWalt but I have a DW cabinet table saw that is approx. 60 years old, 500 lb, and built by Atlas-Clausing as was my Clausing cabinet saw, twin sister to the DW that are in the Unisaw-Powermatic class. Have had Uni's and a "66" but still keep the Clausing. I really think the bean counters are responsible for a lot of the tool companies cheapening up the products till the quality gets to the point that the imports are a better bang for the buck. End up shooting themselves in the foot. Can't sell junk just on the name forever.

[Steve Eure]

I too started out with Craftsman hand tools back in the early 70's. They were a good value. The problem with the power tools is lack of customer support. They may run a tool line for 3-4 years and then discontinue it, and there goes the parts support for that tool. It is annoying for me to buy something from them and then cannot find replacement parts after a few years. That is the reason I stay away from their power tools.

[Terry Therneau]

Let me just note that in the 60s and 70s (when I was growing up on the farm) Craftsman hand tools were the go-to brand if you wanted quality. When the hay crop needs to come in you need to fix a break NOW and can't afford cheap tools. I'm still using those Craftsman sockets and rachets. But they have not been what they once were for quite some time now.

[Phillip Gregory]

I don't believe Craftsman was ever a manufacturer of anything. They just negotiated with various tool companies to produce items to their price point and specs. Over the years they have sold Dewalt, Porter Cable, Rikon and many other brands under the Craftsman name. Most people getting started with tools unless they had friends family in the know started life with Craftsman branded items and quickly moved to better quality tools later in life. I did. Craftsman was the only tool brand name I knew until I started attending woodworking shows and reading magazines.


Correct. The first three digits of the model number of a Craftsman power tool denote the manufacturer, most often it's 103.* which is Emerson Electric. DeVilbiss made most of their air compressors, Atlas made many of their older drill presses, Parks made their thickness planers (back when they still sold them), and a host of other manufacturers actually including DeWalt made a few things for Sears.

When I was growing up, Sears was the place most people got all of their tools. You could get a few hand tools of often mediocre quality at a hardware store, you could pay twice as much as you would for a Craftsman power tool for a Delta power tool, and there was the Harbor Freight catalog if you needed a hand tool that was really cheap. But there was a Sears store in almost every town and nobody ever mentioned anything more expensive than Delta's equipment (such as Powermatic), any industrial-grade equipment, or any equipment from Europe.