What brand of tools do you use?

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Craftsman, Snap-On, bunch of other lesser name but good quality tools. If I buy a tool these days, it's probably Craftsman, good balance of price / quality. Got some Snap-On stuff years ago when I worked at a service station, fine stuff that Snap-On. Just got a set of small Williams wrenches at work, they're sweet. If you have to by pliers type tools, remember the blue handled Channel Lock brand, they're made in PA!
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I agree with most people here. I mostly have Craftsman but if I were a professional mechanic I would prefer to have Snap-On.

For the money, Craftsman is hard to beat.

Oh, and make sure that your wife has good kitchen tools. Like Westbend, for example. She deserves decent stuff also, and the food for the entire family is cooked in those pots and pans.
 
I have a mixed brand of tools. Most of them generic brand.
SAE socket set ACE brand
Performance Tools 135 piece metric&sae tool set
Durlast metric sockets
Powerbuilt torque wrench, hex head sockets
some Craftsman wrenches and screwdrivers
 
quote:
My parents bought me a "Metrinch" set a few years ago...I wasn't very fussed with the idea, but have found them to be quite good tools (especially when working on second hand cars, with rounded nuts etc.)
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I bought the Metrinch set years ago when I still had my Buick. That car used metric and SAE bolts, so the Metrinch was a good choice, as it fit both standards. As you said, rounded nuts and bolts come off easily. I think the set was about $120 maybe 9 years ago. I've been using it a lot, especially on my Audi over the past few years, and no part of the set has ever broken or rusted.
 
I buy my hand tools at Canadian Tire when they are half price. The Mastercraft tools are excellent.

I've worn out a couple of cheap orbital sanders so I decided to give Makita a try.

Black and Decker corded drills are okay.

I really like my Rigid 12" compound mitre. It is scary how the motor brake makes the blade drop down. There should be a second brake on the pivot to prevent accidental hand and thumb choppings.

I buy my drill bits one at a time, only the best for me. It would be nice to buy a Hilti drill with a clutch to prevent the drill from braking arms when it hooks up.

Worm drive circular saws are soo quiet when you run a teflon coated blade. Very nice.
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Cheers, Steve
 
I own just about every brand out there in small quantities. I did a post right after xmas - the pretty and talented wifey got me a set of Pratt-Read screwdrivers. Quality stuff.
 
How about Santronics? One of the niftiest things in my tool collection is their voltage sensor. Hold the plastic tip near a wire with 110-600 volts, and it glows red. Big time saver. It even preserves my Christmas spirit by making it worth while to revive those dead. idiot, series wired strings of lights. Just run it along until the red quits, and then replace the last bulb.

Not their brand, but from Ace Hardware. Never bought anything there I was disappointed with, name brand or Ace.

I have a Skill 3/8 VSR drill. It has had a long, hard life, and may be going, but not before its time. More recently I got a Skill cordless screwdriver. Very handy even for small jobs. I love the way it reverses with a rocker switch. The chuck is a real disappointment. It has a little spring wire in it. The first one went bad and they replaced it for the cost of shipping. Trouble is, I don't thing the second one will hold up either. Bosched up, weak design. It was a freeby from Harris Interactive Online Polls. Not near the quality of the Belkin 5 button optical mouse from them.
 
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How about Santronics? One of the niftiest things in my tool collection is their voltage sensor. Hold the plastic tip near a wire with 110-600 volts, and it glows red. Big time saver. It even preserves my Christmas spirit by making it worth while to revive those dead. idiot, series wired strings of lights. Just run it along until the red quits, and then replace the last bulb.
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I have one of those also. Fluke, Greenlee, and Ideal sell them too. They are very handy and make working on electrical wiring much safer.
Fluke and Ideal make really nice multimeters, they are the only ones I'll buy.
Klein has the best screwdrivers (they might be pratt-reed) I've used. the rest of their tools are top quality too. they market mostly to electricians.
 
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Originally posted by seotaji:
I use the wal-mart brand Stanley, but it works GREAT for my purposes. I see no need to pay 3x more for sears brand which is now made in china (same price as always though). Plus the stanley brand has a lifetime warranty too.
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Sears' Craftsman line is still made in the USA by Danaher. their Companion line is made in Taiwan. that being said, I've had a bunch of Popular Mechanics/Stanley sockets & wrenches from walmart and they've held up extremely well. I've started phasing them out as they've begun to show their age (I bought the first set of them back in '94 or so and have beaten the crap out of them ever since.) the majority of my tools now are Craftsman with S-K and Williams wrenches, and various snap-on, mac and proto tools in the mix. I'm an Iron worker by trade, and what I need for work you pretty much can't find outside of the A line tool companies.. try finding an off brand 1 5/8" slug wrench. as for power tools, it really depends on the tool... I use Dewalt cordless tools if at all possible. we've got a few milwaukee cordless tools and I find their batteries and chargers to be terrible, esp in cold weather. for corded tools I use milwaukee, Makita, and Hilti. I'm not nearly as impressed with Dewalt's corded tools and hate their circular saws.
-Bret
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A tip for keeping your saw blades in perfect shape:

Clean them with oven cleaner and a toothbrush when the pitch builds up. Rinse the blades with warm water and dry immediately with a paper towel. Reinstall the blade and run it to remove remaining moisture. I do the same for router bits, etc..
 
The back of my garage is 15 feet from the crick....rains all the time.....I keep any steel of value at least 3ft from the floor and covered with some type of lube if possible - actually Amsoil MP does an ok job - but any lube that works will need cleaning before delicate or wood work.
 
Keep a small fan running to circulate the air or you can store the tools in a box with some charcoal. The charcoal draws moisture. You can also wipe the tools with a silicone dressing to prevent rust. Most of my tools are kept in a climate controlled shop so I don't have to deal with moisture.
 
Mostly Craftsman with a smattering of Snap-On and SK thrown in. I used to be very fond of SK tools years back when they were made in the USA. Not sure if they still are but doesn't matter much anyway since SK tools can't be found anywhere locally.

Snap-On are awesome tools but they are pricey.
 
Mostly harbor freight . I got $700 worth of tools from them. If i went to sears i would be $3-4000 easy.

Example: 3/4 inch socket set $44 harbor freight, at sears $200.
 
I've been buying Craftsman since the late 80's when I began working on cars. It's not my full time gig, so they hold up just fine. My father in-law used to be a sales rep for Cooper Tools, so I ended up with a few boxes worth of stuff from him. I think I now have 8-10 measuring tapes, a bunch of hammmers and I think 100+ hacksaw blades of various teeth.
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