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New Craftsman Products. Junk or fluke?

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Shop Supply Guru

Shop Supply Guru

Hot Rolled
Joined
May 3, 2016
Location
Ohio USA
So the father in law is excited about his new $99 impact with a "Craftsman label" on it from Lowe's. I took a look at it. It looks pretty nice. Just squeezing the trigger I felt some torque. Cut to the other day he calls me and says it's junk. First use he pulls the 1/4" hex quick release out to put a Phillips driver in and it falls apart. He didn't even get the bit in before it broke. That's pretty awful. Maybe it's a fluke but it threw up red flags. He took it back to lowes and bought a dewalt.

I have a suspicion that the same people that were making their Kobalt drills are making these Craftsman drills. I'm sure someone on here has some insight on this??

Craftsman obviously hasn't been great in years but I was really hoping this new batch of stuff they came out with would raise the bar.

Anyone had experience with the brand new stuff they have come out? As in the last year for certain things and as far as I know quite a few new products this spring?
 
Are those guidelines really applicable to hand and power tools? I bet 90% of the people here have drawers full of Craftsman hand tools. The purpose I thought was to keep discussion of their 6x18 lathes and similar out of the forum.


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Ban me please!

Ok ok I get it Craftsman has probably been beat to death over the years. I'm sorry if someone has recently opened a similar thread.

However I think this is potentially helpful. I'm a active cutting tool sales guy and my customers use all sorts of big name brands from box stores. If other people have great experiences with the brand new Craftsman stuff it can help them. On the other hand if 5 other guys are like yeah these new drills or whatever other tool are junk it can help other machinists and machine shops avoid a frustrating experience.
 
So I guess "professional" 'chinist only use SnapOn or MAC or Matco or whatever else, huh? LMAO every machinist I have ever worked with had one drawer full of "junk" hand tools, and rarely had Craftsman even back when their hand tools were still good.
 
you ever use a drill bit or other tooling from a well known manufacturer and it breaks in 2 seconds using it ?? and every drill bit in the package is the same ?
.
unfortunately many places do not do 100% testing. if heat treatment was off or not done correctly many tools can break almost immediately on first use.
.
if you can easily return defective items to a local store and get your money back that far easier than trying to send items by mail back to manufacturer for a refund.
.
had a brand new bathroom faucet leak after a few days. turns out the valve orings for the hot water were not rated for hot water. had to send by mail and a few weeks later i got the correct one and it doesnt leak from the heat of hot water. still annoying to have to do that. it was thru big brand hardware store and they did not refund replace at store they were the ones who told me where to mail it and get a replacement faucet valve stem with proper orings.
 
Shop Supply Guru said:
...... so any experiences with the brand new Craftsman stuff?
Click to expand...

I have bought hand tools at ACE that appear to be a continuation of the Craftsman as they have been for some time.

I have looked at the stuff at Lowes and it does not appear to be the same manufacturer, packaging, labeling, anything

Craftsman hand tools, power tools, etc have never been world class but they were always of dependable quality

I bought craftsman drill presses for deburring use in the shop, put a off brand keyless chuck and they have run for 25 years or more.

SO for a small amount more than a horrid Chinese drill press, where the holes in the crank handle are not square with the casting, and the pulleys wobbled from day one, you could buy one with obvious quality control and decent reliability. Yes a 70 year old Delta is better, and always will be, but I have parts to make and no time to cruise craigslist and drive an hour when Sears was 15 minutes away.

And when sears still existed, you could get parts.
 
as far as I know all Craftsman stuff is contracted out to a manufacturer and they put the Craftsman name on it. there is no Craftsman factories owned by Sears as far as I know.
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stuff made could have been made by 10 different manufacturers the same product over many years. just like many companies its not unusual to have stuff made and they put a name on it
 
Oh yeah everyone knows their is no Craftsman factory out there making this stuff. I think this push from Lowes on Craftsman is them trying to replace their Kobalt line. I see very few Kobalt tools around definitely not shop use but not much home use either. I think they just want a name.
 
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