NEW Craftsman tools -- opinion?

I don't have any of the new Sears Craftsman tools. I do have a Sears Lawn Vac. I ordered a new leaf bag. It's not a real complicated part. It came in so badly made I had to take power tools to it to make it fit on the vac.

My take is that Sears is in a slow death spiral and you can buy their stuff if you want, but should not expect it to be any better than cheap Chinesium junk straight from Guangzhou. After Sears formally fails I expect corporate vultures will swoop in and milk the various brand names of any remaining value.

There was a time when I would have said differently.

 

New Craftsman ratchets are junk compared to 50 yr old ones I have. Poor casting with rgh edges and sloppy mechanical teeth. The overall quality is based on cost. (cheap)

 

Are the hand tools even made in the US anymore?

 

Craftsman tools were never that good. A few lucky examples emerged over the years but they weren't the rule.

The selling point was always that they came with a no-questions-asked exchange warranty good at Sears stores in convenient locations everywhere.

Without that, the name is meaningless. What brand is sold, stocked & readily exchanged at the most convenient store for you? That's what to get.

 

I believe they still do that. Lowes carries Craftsman.

 

For a 2nd home or just a 2nd set, I would try estate sales or FB Marketplace.

I know many people downsizing and find the older hand tools are just as good or better than the new stuff for less than 1/2 the price.

 

I can't offer personal experience with the new Craftsman hand tools because I'm still using the large collection I bought in the late 1970's. (Except for a 3/8" socket ratchet that someone somehow broke for me.) They saw heavy daily use for 10 years while I was a mechanic and have seen frequent use ever since then because I still love wrenching.

However, Sears never made Craftsman tools; they just owned the companies that made them. This website seemed interesting to me.
Craftsman Tools Review: Are Craftsman Tools Good? | ToolsTurf

I have also bought several Kobalt hand tools sold at Lowes and they seem durable, but I haven't used them long enough to really know.

 

How do you break a socket?

 

Brand harvesting

1. Place socket on driver. 2. Place socket on fastener. 3. Apply turning force in excess of strength of socket.

 

A pneumatic impact driver can make that job easier.

 

Hah! I used to put a pipe over the handle to increase torque. When I destroyed the ratchet mechanism, I learned to use a breaker bar. Although I've bent the handles, there's nothing to break.

 

What @ChapmanF said.

Brain fart. I wrote the wrong word although I have broken one or two cheap sockets. I stripped a few 12-point sockets, too. (There's a huge difference between Craftsman and the old Sears brand tools.) But what the borrower broke was my 3/8" ratchet. There was a void in the casting for the square part that goes into the socket. Snapped it right off. I expect he was using a longer cheater pipe than I'd ever used on it because I'd had it for a number of years.

 

I've installed 2 lift kits on my various 4Runners and encountered some pretty stubborn nuts even with 1/2" tools, but I always used PB Blaster spray on the bad ones and sometimes a 3' break over pipe. I've never come close to destroying a socket.

Update: Ahh the ratchet. Yes, I can see that

I have 1/4", 3/8" and 1/2" Craftsman 1980's era tools sets. If it looks acts stubborn, I bounce to the 1/2" tools. They usually make quick work of it or destroy the nut or bolt.

 

Many years ago, a friend who had worked on the oil fields told about the crew he was with breaking a Williams Super Wrench breaker bar. IIRC, it was a one inch drive. Might have been bigger. They actually managed to loosen the nut with a ratchet after the breaker failed. (Backwards, eh?) When the Williams sales rep came by next time, they asked if he's swap it out for them. He handed them a new breaker and said, "How many guys did you have on the cheater pipe?" They said, "Four." The sales rep said they weren't supposed to do that and gave them the new tool.

 

I'm sure the bar broke it loose enough for the ratchet to work, but a great story anyway. Gotta love no questions asked guarantees!

 

It's entirely possible you never will. Or that one day you will.

If it happens, you will hear the crack, your ratchet handle or breaker bar will move farther faster than you planned, you will lift the tool and look at it and say "well look at that, socket broke." It won't be accompanied by thunders and lightnings and great signs in the sky or anything like that. It'll just happen.

If it's late in the day, raining, and it was your last socket of that size, you might say more than "well, look at that."

 

Did Sears own the companies that made the tools that they sold under the "Craftsman" brand? Or did they simply contract out their manufacture, just as they did with the "Kenmore"-branded appliances. Our "Kenmore" microwave that we just pensioned off (handle broke off, no replacement available, and someone gave us an almost-new microwave) was made by GoldStar/LG (or whatever the company was called at the time). Our old Kenmore washing machine was made by Frigidaire, and the "Kenmore" dishwasher and refrigerator that are still going strong (I hope they are not reading over my shoulder) are by Whirlpool.