Growing up, everything my dad ever bought made by black&decker broke way too early. He swore he never bought b&d again and hasn't Makita is his preference.
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Growing up, everything my dad ever bought made by black&decker broke way too early. He swore he never bought b&d again and hasn't Makita is his preference.
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My B&D battery operated drill worked for about an hour then it went to the trash bin which is about as good as Sear's Craftsman drills.
With that said, B&D foldable table (Workmate) is extremely useful and couldn't go without one on a jobsite, the old professional 10" chop saw is pretty good and could take a lot of abuse and it would be hard to find a better circular saw than the worm drive B&D.
Black and Decker went down the toilet when DeWalt bought them out.
I'm pretty sure B&D bought DeWalt, not the other way around
B&D made or bought Dewalt B&D has been in the toilet since 1970
B&D mainly targeted the crap market years ago with their own brand tools. They bought DeWalt some time around 1970 and left them run themselves. In the late '80s B&D was making industrial-quality tools again, but no one would buy them because of the repuation. So they shut down DeWalt's stationary tool line and started selling industrial portable tools under the name. They also bought ELU and sold some of their tools under the DeWalt name. These days very few to none B&D or ELU tools are still in the DeWalt line. All original designs.
GTO(John)
According to the corporate history Black and Decker bought DeWalt in
1960.See:
Other brands they own are Price Pfister, Kwikset and Emhart.
Clearly the B&D tool line is a low end line and should be compared to other low end lines like Ryobi, Harbor Freight etc. etc. People comparing B&D performance to DeWalt, Milwaukee, Porter Cable etc. makes no sense. It is like paying for a Toyota Tercel and expecting a Lexus.
Black and Decker itself makes this distinction on its home page where it refers to the B&D line as a consumer line and the DeWalt line as a "high-peformance" line.
They state:
"The Power Tools and Accessories segment manufactures and markets consumer power tools, accessories, electric lawn and garden tools, and electric cleaning and lighting products under the Black & Decker brand, and high-performance power tools, accessories, industrial equipment, laser products and air compressors under the DEWALT brand."
See the section on business segments at:
"Joe Doe" wrote
Nobody's comparing anything. 3 out of the 4 B&D small power tools I have bought in the past 5 years worked for less than 3 months each under normal conditions. I don't think it's too much to ask that a product actually WORK THE WAY IT WAS ADVERTISED!???
This is just B&D's way of saying "we told you so" and trying to prevent unhappy consumers returning the products when they fail. Lazy or passive people won't take the time to return a $30 item if it has worked for 2-3 months. They figure, "hey, I did get 2-3 month out of it, so that's OK."
I have had good experiences with B & D products. They are certainly not commercial grade tools, but they seem to be at least a little better than the typical consumer crap otherwise available, mostly. It varies with the item. I just look at the options and try to pick the best one. If it appears to be B & D, then so be it. Thus far I have found them to be acceptable consumer grade products.
Leonard
"Leonard Caillouet" wrote
A good motto for them!!
No kidding! I thought GE still made them.
On 12/29/2004 11:18 PM US(ET), Fred took fingers to keys, and typed the following:
B&D bought GE's small appliance division, not the large appliance division. The small appliances are probably still made in the former GE plants with former GE workers.
...which are probably all in China.
jak
GE hasn't actually used American workers to make any kind of appliance for some time. Just one more reason they're known as "Generous Electric".
>Not related to anything, but GE employees call the GE logo the "meatball".
After seeing how they treated my friend, who is THE best salesman I have ever seen, I wouldn't use a GE product to wipe my butt with.
He used to sell for one of their industrial divisions until he got fed up and got a decent company to work for. They can't do a good job calling on customers because HQ is always sending the latest green VP down to ride around with them. Then, when they're allowed to plan their own day, they have to limit their sales calls because of the time required to fill out the reams of meaningless reports. In the mean time, their customers wait for weeks for GE customer service to contact them. I myself was interested in an industrial product and never did get anyone to give a reference on it.
Fred
Around here I would call it Gone Eccentric. They might have been right or wrong in getting out of the Power Transformer business but that left six thousand without jobs a few years back. Recently Plastics brought fifty or sixty people from India and Mexico here to train as accounts payable/receivable clerks and help desk assistants. Those people eventually went back to their countries with the jobs that were done here. Of course, the people doing the training here in the States are now unemployed. They may "Bring good things to life" but they can ruthlessly destroy good lives also.
Bill
or Generally defective.
GE sold off its TV and other consumer products (including the RCA product line) to Thompson (a French company) some years ago.
As you mention, the "white" goods was sold off to B&D (I didn't know who in particular.)
GE only manufactures BIG stuff today (e.g.: jet engines, locomotives, power plant turbines, etc.) The other may BE makes money is by finance and, of course, it's ownership of NBC acquired with the takeover of RCA. They still are in the x-ray machine and medical scanning business.
Basically, they sell off divisions that face serious competition from Asia.
Touche
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