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Re: (ET) the tools discussion
I used to make my living fixing punch presses, press brakes, shears,
saws, ironworkers and the like in mfg companies in SoCal.
Many of these machines use metered oil systems that have brass
metering units at each oil injection point.
These brass units are either 3/8" for the American made or 10mm for
the Japanese. The brass is soft (of course) and they were usually put
in too tight and left too long.
My first SnapOn purchase was a pair of flare nut wrenches in 10mm and
3/8". I paid $14 each for them back in 1986. I call them my "wrenches
of gold" but they paid off the first day I had them.
It always is best to buy the best tools available when you can. The
trick is to know what is best. You cannot trust the brand name or the
price to tell you.
SnapOn is excellent if you have a dealer who you see frequently. Then
the rare problems can be handled quickly.
On the 4.5" angle grinders, I find my Hitachi to be the best. It is
the only one I will do real grinding with. My B&D ones are used with
either a cutoff wheel or a sanding disk and work fine as long as I
don't need to lean on them which I don't with a cutoff or sanding
disk.
Cheaper tools can be OK as long as you can tell if they will do the
job. That is the tricky part, getting the experience to know usually
will have you also ending up with lots of really good tools. :)
michael
On 2/11/07, Christopher Zach <cz alembic crystel com> wrote:
Snap-on is truly the ultimate in tools. There is one case where I used a
snap on metric socket to metric torx driver on a bolt that would break
even craftsman tools. The snap on one removed it like butter.
Of course that one tool was $15.00. Which puts it in the over-the-top
class. While Snap-On does have even better quality that say C-tools, the
difference is small, and nothing like the difference between Craftsman
and say Home Despot tools.
Chris