This might be old news, but this afternoon I was watching some PBS home shows and noticed that sponsor adds for Delta and Porter cable were nearly identical???? So I did a little research and found they have both been bought by Black and Decker. As I didn't quite like what that meant to DeWalt, I am glad I didn't buy a Porter Cable recipicating saw to replace my old one that recently died after more than a decade of use. As B&D means crap to me...

Ryobi owns Milwaukee....

Soon enough the only tools worth buying will be German made.

Bob that too is worth knowing, and dare I say it german tools have worked out great for me so far, and the new saw is a Bosch RS-15... Not sure where it's made... Considering its cost Mexico? Reguardless, my point was company leadership eventually determines quality and endurance, and other Bosch products I have owned have been good... As were my pre-B&D DeWalt stuff. My Porter Cable Tiger lasted ~15 years of abuse until a metal chip in the fan housing and a reverse powered outlet fataly coinsided to make it no longer double insulated. (And the FPE breaker and close proximity to the feeding transformer were factors to sure as well) It was like the passing of an old friend - That saw has been through a lot with me.....

I was at the orange box store the other day and noticed that the ryobi combo packs, (drill, sawzall, skillsaw etc). was WAY below what the dewalt combo kits are running. I believe Ryobis' was 159.00, and the dewalts, ridgid, and milwaukees were in the 400 to 600 dollar range. I almost bought the ryobi kit, almost...


I didn't know that Ryobi had bought Milwaukee..when did this happen?

I also agree with E57, B&D is crap for the work we electricians need powertools for.

I believe I heard about the Ryobi deal about a year ago or so....

Delta style quality has usually meant STEEL folded parts and simple time tested design. PC has usually meant robust castings and steel fabricated parts. B&D has usually meant plastic molded parts that should have been metal - like DeWalts formerly metal gear boxes... Bosch has usually meant innovation of some type - usually good, although I'm not sure I like their "Direct connect cord", which is why I opted out of that...



[This message has been edited by e57 (edited 02-10-2007).]

Close, but no cigar.

Ryobi, Milwaukee, Homelite and some others are owned by a Hong Kong based conglomerate called Techtronic Industries. http://www.ttigroup.com/general/home.php


That's funny you say that considering that AEG (a German company with an excellent reputation) is owned by Techtronic!!


Peter



[This message has been edited by CTwireman (edited 02-10-2007).]

B&D bought the Delta and Porter-Cable lines from Pentair, who also own(ed?) Hoffman.
Delta has already been tossed down into the toilet since all of their tools are made in China now with the exception of their "signature tool" the Unisaw which is "assembled" in Jackson TN.Wait for B&D to ruin P-C .

BTW, Black & Decker has owned DeWalt since the 50's, Rockwell owned Delta and P-C untill 1984.

Black and Decker also own Kwikset lock and PricePfister faucet.


steve

I used to own a 14.4 PC drill. It even came with a 1/2 chuck. Drilling with unibits, holesaws, daily, the occasional 'drop' test from ladders up to 8'. A great drill.

It disappeared from my truck with the rest of my tools the FIRST time I had fallen victim to a theif.

What about Makitas?? BTW...

and further more..

That's crazy...that Milwaukee isn't based in America anymore. What's next?? Klien Tools?

[This message has been edited by Luketrician (edited 02-11-2007).]

Prior to the HK company, Milwaukee was owned by Atlas-Copco, a Swedish company....

IIRC Bosch owns Skill

Norcal I thought B&T bought Dewalt in the 90's????? Or at least thats when I noticed a decline in thier quality... I could be wrong - I have been before..... According to this guy it was 1960... http://www.owwm.com/MfgIndex/detail.asp?ID=252

Either way I wish it were easier to know who your giving your money....

BUMP!

I give up........I'm going back to using a bit and brace....!

DeWalt just built radial arm saws when B&D bought them, now they quit making them and sold the rights to a company called Wolfe.
I have collected a number of old Delta/Rockwell stationary tools most of them date from the 1930s up into the 70s,you can safely bet that the "Chaiwanese" tools are not going to be around that long.

"Friends dont let friends buy DeWalt."

"Buy quality, buy once."*

Luke
I have a good assortment of power tools and the Makita does seem to hold up to any of them.
I have figured out a set of brushes can bring one back from the dead if you stopped using it as soon as it started making that horrible noise. (before you burn the commutator) Ace has brushes but you will have to find them.
Start near the power tool parts and they will be in a little parts box most employees have never opened

My next door neighbor and good buddy is the materials manager for DeVilbiss in Jackson TN, air compressors and generators, and works closely with the crew at Porter Cable and says that the line of tools made today are 180 degrees different than the "old days". Plastic everything and metal nothing. I have been through the DeVilbiss plant with him and he has offered to take me throught the Porter plant but I don't really want to after I did the DeVilbliss with him. Not knocking their product or anything but I couldn't believe how many different companies they made compressors for and the only differences were paint and decals.

[This message has been edited by gobblerhuntr (edited 02-12-2007).]

I've seen some reviews where Hitachi tools were rated favorably, and my caprenter buddies like Hitachi stuff.

Has anyone tried their cordless drilll?

Just as another perspective on this, Dewalt has been owned by B&D for years and they make nice tools. Recently I have been buying the Dewalt portabands instead of the Milwaukee line; originally for price reasons but after my guys started using them they all prefer the Dewalt over the Milwaukee, and they are $80 less per unit and an even bigger cut if I buy at least 10 units.

As for cordless drills, I buy the cheapest refurb junk I can find, Skill has a nice cordless unit with (2) 18V batteries and it works great as a screw gun. I generally pick these up for about $70 a unit if I buy (20) or more, and they far outlast Dewalt, Bosch, Makita, and Milwaukee, but there is a catch. They reason they outlast the nicer cordless units is they don’t get stolen; if I buy anything nice it wont make 6 months and it is gone, but the Skill cordless units last about 12-15 months before I have to replace them.

The other problem I have is when a really good cordless unit is purchased (Bosch), the tool has so much power that my electricians get lazy and try to use it in lieu of a hole hog, when they really should be using a hole hog, and burn it up. To date I have not had one Skill burn up because they don’t even try to use it for that.

At home I use Makita, because my daughter thinks “the blue ones are pretty”, and I think they work great.

There are nonflamable spray electric cleaners out there that can extend motor life. I became a believer when I saw a guy shoot his 1/2 drill w/ one. He had paper towels on the bench and when the fluid drained on it, it was black. Dirt and carbon build are the enemy. BTW, who makes the drill w/ a rocker switch for forward/reverse switching?? I worked for a guy who had one, and it was great. I want to think it was Hitachi.

All of these manufacturer buyouts and mergers are giving me a headache. The bottom line is that you really can't trust the name brand as being a quality indicator anymore.

Same applies with electrical hardware, I mean think about Siemens, Square D, Cutler-Hammer, and Thomas & Betts. All fine brands in their own rights, but they have bought long-standing brand names and now they have, well let's say, diluted.

Whatever happened to ITE, Gould, Bryant, Westinghouse, Raco, Steel City, Efco, Halex, Bridgeport Fittings, Eagle, Red Dot, etc.? They got gobbled up.

Case in point: When did anyone ever question the level of quality of a Square D product? Right........Never. It was rock-solid equipment. Nowadays, you have to ask the question, "is it the Square D Home Line" or the original "Q" product. As the years go by, the separation between product lines becomes more dilluted.

Too bad. The names mentioned here were great products. Oh, well, I guess business is business.

Hey ITO, it's funny you mentioned only buying the cheap skill's as a theft deterrent. I remeber when Hilti came out with their 24v cordless hammerdrill, real nice. We had bought five of them, twice! After the second robbery of our gang-box. We just went back to the old beat up 'corded' hammerdrills. No one ever tried to steal them.

I can't remeber how much those cordless Hiltis were, I think somewheres around 8 to 900 bucks.

I had a Hitachi 12V that lasted a few years before someone burned it up popping holes in a can with a unibit. Since then I've had the same De Walt 18V and it still runs pretty much as good as new (exception: one of the batteries recently gave up on life). Our service trucks are loaded with some pretty nice stuff Milwaukee porta band, hole hawg and sawzall, Bosch hammer drill (transmission died in the 1st one) Fluke clamp on multi meter, and Fluke 1000V megger. Rigid power pony and dies (a must, 99% of what we run is rigid or Ocal), Brady label maker etc..

All the buyouts and stuff have made life a little harder, but yet a little easier at the same time...I miss having Sierra as a local manufacturer, but on the flip side.. Wasn't it T&B that put the final bullet in the Zinsco line?

Now if someone would do something with Leviton

Off subject, but I think UBI bought the rights for Zinsco from T&B.

Same type of topic.... I think there was a thread with a blow by blow list of who bought who...

It's amazing how many drills get tossed when all they need is a new set of brushes...

also if replacing the brushes fails, open her up, check the commutator for shorts and shine it up, a little grease in the gearbox...

don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.

How many drills get tossed when the batteries take a dump?

NorCal I bet that is the #1 cause of drill replacement. You can usually get a new drill with 2 batteries for about what the batteries cost.
One thing you can do with cast off 12v tools is put a lighter plug on them and use them on your boat/car. For free it is worth doing.

Panasonic fan here. Quality when it comes to cordless. The batteries seem to go on forever. They are the only company in the world that manufacturers their own batteries to go with their cordless tools.

Hitachi makes good cordless products too.

S.

The first cordless I owned was Makita 9.6V. I thought it was great until I used someone else's Dewalt Cyclone 9.6V (anyone else remember those?)Bought 2 of those that were promptly stolen. All the carpenters were using 14.4V Dewalt by then so I replaced the stolen drills with Dewalt 14.4V so I could use the chargers that were on the jobsites. Had no complaints with the Dewalt 14.4 and used them for 5-6 years until they were stolen off an industrial long-term job. Showed up for work one day and they were gone. Needed a cordless quickfastandinahurry so I bought a PC 14.4V to get working that day. I was blown away by the torque and long-lasting battery. I bought 2 more. They worked great for about 5 years and then the batteries started dying one after another. Sold the PC drills to a local deckbuilder for cheap and bought Milwaukee 14.4V about 3 years ago. So far they are my favorite I have owned. My father-in-law (also an EC) wanted a Ryobi set for Father's Day a couple of years ago. He was asking for something different before Christmas the same year. I teamed with another EC a couple of years ago on a large industrial job who had Makita 9.6 stuff that he swore by. After a few days of shooting tek screws in to purlans I noticed we were only using my Milwaukee guns. The Makitas stayed in the jobox. Everybody likes what they like. I have another EC buddy who is sold on the Rigid line. I don't care for them myself. When someone asks me what I think they should get I tell them what I've had and what I have now. If you can get 3-5 years out of cordless tools using them the way I use them you've gotten your money's worth.

I have a Milwaukee 14.4 V. and 18 V. drill, the 14.4 is by far my favorite drill, nicely balanced, reversable battery and takes abuse, the big problem is the batteries are failing and its going to be some serious dough to replace them, costing enough that I considered a Panasonic,since many good things have been said about them,but the cost was a bit much,($329.00 for drill, clutch driver and 2 batteries). BTW, the Milwaukee drills were made in Germany,but last time I looked at a new one they were made in the Czech Republic.

Harbor Freight.

Yeah, right.....everybody says it's junk. But look at the housings and the castings. They are identical to many of the name brands (particularly Delta). It's all made in China, so what's the difference?

Go spend $19.95 on a 4.5 inch grinder at Harbour Freight and it will last just as long as your Delta, B&D, etc.

IMHO!