A very large part. If americans as a whole would value quality and maintain / repair instead of throw away and replace cheap, mabee we would still have a manufacturing industry too. Business built their business model on selling a LOT of CHEAP product, rather than good quality - and to keep up in that world, they had to outsource - so we get Chinese Junk, and it is getting extremely difficult to find decent tools, or ANYTHING made in North America.
Han, Are you referring to the Force Machinery on Rt 22 in Union joining up with Rockler?
Actually you can lay the blame for that business model at the feet of Andrew Carnegie.
He is the one who gave birth to the idea of buying a piece of machinery, running it 24/7, without any maintenance, until it died, then replace it.
Lew
ROY! wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:
You're right, ROY!, I was thinking of that "union" of stores!
OK... you are gonna laugh.. so sit down. I get REALLY attached to some of my old tools that have served me faithfully for years without complaint, requireing only simple maintenance. So you bet your butt that saw is in the shop to stay, and it has it own little shelf. The red plastic is so old and weathered that it turned purple!
I also have an old Sears router that has 1,000,000 miles on it. Before we could buy "ploughed" or "dadoed" fascia, we had to make our on on site when framing houses. I used that thing as the only safe grooving tool pushing those miserable steel bits for about 3 years. It still runs, and it too is over thirty years old!
I still have my old all metal cased Rockwell 346 circular saw; I don't know how old it is because I got it used somewhere around 1977. It runs to this day.
I have an old Milwaukee "super 3/8 holeshooter" that I got in 1976 when they put me on a commercial framing crew. I didn't need a circular saw, just some good snips and a screwshooter. I used this drill to frame and hang commercial sheetrock for years. I never did anything to it but put in brushes and blow it out on tool cleaning day. It still runs as well, and sometimes I still use it in the shop.
We will never see the likes of those old tools again. That old Milwaukee drill has BRONZE gears in it! No wonder they never worked loose or got sloppy.
But everyone seems to be on the "don't bother to rebuild" bandwagon. Have you taken a tool in for repair lately? Our best local small power tool repair shop (and authrized dealer for all the big names) charges $65 to bench the tool, and will apply that to the labor charge if you want to have them perform the repairs.
I just put a new trigger in an old variable speed/reversible drill. The trigger was $54 plus tax, which put it at about $60. Add in their $65 bench fee, and it would have cost me the same as I paid for the drill a couple of years ago, $125. When I told that to the guy at the shop, he said, "then why would you have it fixed?" It should be noted that those guys do a booming business in used tools that are never claimed once the owners find out what the repairs cost.
I shudder to think what the trigger replacement would have actually cost as this trigger was as close as they could get, but not an EXACT match. I had to cut the leads to the trigger, put on new lugs, and file off a small piece of plastic that was molded into the handle as a guide for the original trigger.
It sure shouldn't be that way, but it is. And I shudder to think what one of these German/Swedish/Finnish wonderments will cost when they break. Ouch!
Robert
It is the military performance model.
As close to !00% performance for a finite time, then drop dead and get a new one.
Pretty decent method for the military when you figure the service life of some military equipment is probably measured in minutes, not hours or even days.
Lew
Ouch!
You wont see me laughing. I am the same way with tools. In our last house we had a breezeway, rustic, lot of rough sawn, timberframe. I had shelves with tools all around. I have several old tools of my own, my fathers, and my grandfathers, that still run to this day and I would never think of tossing them. I have a couple old B&D drills, all chrome, that were my fathers. I remember using them as a child and to this day when I pull the trigger the smell of ozone coming out of the motor sends me back in time hehe. Forget about hand tools, framing chisels, apron planes, marking gauges, and so on. Its good karma to pay homage to things that serve you well. I recently pulled some tools from the trailer and put them in the shop as they have such value to me I dont trust our guys to use them responsibly. One was my dads bevel gauge which I have used personally for over 20 years.
I agree with the tool repair of today. I do most all my own repairs now for the very reasons you state. Around here you are usually talking close to 100 bucks for almost anything you have done to a tool and its just too hard to swallow coupled with the parts.
Mark
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