History Tool availability back then

Fritzee is great, I love watching his content. Very informative and he works with simple tools.

In case anyone is interested
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6JPmJ_aicru8XPWr3EvJnw

 

Rule #1 - The true cost of a tool is the purchase price divided by how many times you have used it.
Rule #2 - But the true worth of a tool is the cost multiplied by the times used.

 

Ekimneirbo, I humbly thank you for your kind words. So many customers just want to complain about the bill without ever considering what it takes to do this job. Thank you again.


Sent from my iPhone using The H.A.M.B. mobile app

 

Child labor, slave labor, folks chained to the workbench, etc etc keeps those manufacturing costs down.

 

95% Snap-on hand tools are all still made in the USA!!! Only exception are some specialty pliers and all adjustable wrenches they are made in Spain in since Snap-on bought Bocco a big European tool company. Power tool batteries are made in China as well as most of the glass filled nylon housings of the tools themselves but the: design, enterals and assembly is done in Murphy North Carolina. That factory has been Making Siuox tools for many years probably including the famous Von Dutch drill Moriarity has listed here on the HAMB CLASIFIEDS.

I can give more details and include personal photographs I took of these plants, but you can also find the videos on you tube and " how it's made" did 6 episodes on Snap-on tools in the USA.

Most of the other so called professional brands are all made overseas. Older Mac and Craftsman tools (pre 90's)that lots of HAMBERS probably still have are far superior to the stuff made (re-branded )by those companies now. Now Blue Point is a different story.

 

I thought blue point was snap one " lesser" line. I have some blue point stuff I bought in the 60's I still use . Our old snap on guy said the biggest difference was the finish/ plating ...?

 

I, like many here, am a complete tool whore and a former admitted brand-snob. USA-made only, Craftsman, Proto, Williams, Snap-On... whatever. When Craftsman and some other manufacturers started to go offshore, I'd mix in an offshore piece or set here and there, since I saw no benefit in paying USA price for tools no longer made in the USA. Now, I'm mainly looking for value in performance, and don't think twice about COO, and more about quality and value. I'm not a commercial tech, and my equipment is not being abused or excessively utilized. But I will say that I've never done as much work as I have in the last 3-4 years, and my tools, both foreign and domestic, have been very much up to the task. I filled out a bunch of my tools with sets from HF, and I have to say my go-to sockets have been the Quinn branded stuff from HF, which is just rebadged Kobalt. They've been awesome. I wouldn't be surprised if my future grandkids get them, and if they don't, WTF do I care? The set was $10.

 

"I remember when I first started messing with cars I had a Craftsman tool box about 18” long with the lift out tray, a ratchet and sockets a set of combination wrenches, a Stanley hacksaw..."

Hello,
When we started doing mechanical things, my brother bought a Craftsman Tool Box similar to the one @bchctybob had. The only thing we did not have was a grinder. That came later. After several weeks of his after school job, my brother bought an oxy/acetylene torch set. We borrowed the trash can cart from our mom and told her it broke and did not work well. So, she went out and bought a new one for the weekly trash can movement to the front yard. We rolled the tanks onto the old cart and made a swinging bracket to hold the tanks in place.
Rumpus Room (40s-50s rec room) with opening French Doors and casement windows…

So, our old tools were still on the counter of the two car garage. The oxy/acetylene torch set was bolted to the old trash hand dolly and could move anywhere. It wasn’t until we decided to tear down the French Doors and a wall of opening casement windows to create a lift up garage door. The old backyard Rumpus Room was now going to be a single car garage for any automotive work or build of a project.
New plywood garage door in the place of the casement windows and French Doors. It was the perfect place that was far enough away from the main house that any big time noises would not bother our parents.

Jnaki

The only thing we really wanted was a hydraulic floor jack prior to us making the backyard rec room into a garage. Other than that, it was the simple Craftsman Tool Box and the different wrench sets that came rolling under the Christmas tree every year. We had a very sturdy wooden work bench we made and it had the requisite counter mounted vise for that kind of work.

As we did more automotive work, the “stuff” started to accumulate, but it was good stuff, necessary for further builds. Our dad came home one day and opened his big Buick trunk. Inside was a new hydraulic floor jack given to him by his best friend from Los Angeles. It was a Walker 4 ton model with black/silver highlights. YES!!!

 

I can remember a time where a cherry picker was something you rented or borrowed because they were costly. A buddy of mine and I bought one together and shared it. The thing was homebuilt and was as long as the Mustang II daily driver I used to have back then. It was one of those tools where it was great when you needed it but a pain in the ass to store it when you weren't. I now have a foldable one I bought that although it's not heavy duty it still gets the job done.

 

Have no idea how many times I rented a cherry picker from the rental place. To pull the engine from a friend's van, we welded up a replacement vertical support for the rental unit that was shorter to make the job easier. Eventually bought enough parts to finish making one. Loaned it out and haven't a clue where it ended up. Now I have one of those fold up ones like everyone else.

 

Like others I now have a fold up cherry picker. But during the modified years, I used a chain type lever ratchet hoist thing sort of like a really good come along. An old friend of my father's gave it to me. BTW my father was definitely not a tool or car guy, he was a surgeon, but passed when I was 14. Anyway this chain hoist ratcheting lever thingwas supposedly rated for 2 tons, and probably waswhen it was new 35 or 40 years before. The ratchet had the most amazing quirk of knowing just when to NOT catch, like when dropping the engine in and you are under the car guiding the engine onto the transmission/bell housing and your hands are in some inopportune position, when your buddy above is lowering it for you. That's going to leave a mark.

And hanging it from the rafters in the garage... 2x4 trusses. Probably not the best idea either. I survived it andstill have all ancillary appendages, and they all mostly work...

 

I feel a little better now. I did quite a few engine lifts with my cheap come-along and the garage trusses. Mine too had the factory "miss the pawl and drop the load" feature, along with the "the only way to reverse this thing is to release the load... at height" function. Upgraded to a chain block and steel beam a few years back. The hoarder in me won't let me throw out the comealong.

Cheers,
Harv

 

My grandfather ran a gas station and garage in the early 1930's. Around 1935 he sold it and went to work at the local Chevy dealership as a mechanic. He had a good chainfall so he took it to work for the shop to use in place of the worn out one they had.

He left there in the early 40's and took a construction job with the federal government building an Army hospital here. Left the chainfall for the shop to use and never worked as a mechanic again other than on his own stuff.

Fast forward about 55 years. The dealership had passed to the owner's son who ran it until retirement age and then sold it to some people who built a new facility about a mile away. Dad knew the son as they'd both worked in the garage as flunky labor as teenagers in high school. He'd kept the buildings and put them up for sale separately from the dealership. He called Dad one day and told him the chainfall was still hanging on the same beam in the old garage as it was when they'd both worked there, and that his own Dad had reminded him several times over the years that it belonged to Howard(my grandfather) and not to the dealership.

Dad took a couple of his employees the following week and met the owner to get the chainfall down from where it had hung for 60 years. While they were there the owner told Dad he wanted to also give him a fairly new 10 hp air compressor that was still in the building. He said he'd thought about running an ad to sell it, but decided he'd rather give it to Dad as payment for 60 years rent on the chainfall rather than make 20 trips to the building to meet a string of idiots who'd figure they could buy the compressor from some old geezer like him for 75 bucks.

 

G-pa Howard sounds like a great guy, and his old flunky co-worker wasn’t bad either. Good story!