Power tool manufacturers and who owns them
protoolreviews.com
protoolreviews.com
For those that don't know, SawStop is one of the most impressive recent techical innovations in tablesaws. It basically smashes a running blade down into an aluminium crashblock as soon as it detects something conductive touching it.
It's great to watch it work: https://youtu.be/rnlTGndRi38?t=158
Also, the list is missing at least Mafell and Fein, but they are (like Hilti and Makita) simply owned by themselves. Edit: and Lamello!
In both cases I get the impression that if it were financially viable, they'd prefer to only do fleet sales and maintenance.
The professionals I know generally all use a couple expensive tools from Hiltl or Festool etc over time. They can justify a new machine on a single job that pays ~8k, the time saved with the right tool is often already worth it.
And of course they are smart enough to know when they can use the "best long-lasting & cheap" tools instead of the high-end equivalents. I'm looking at you Makita PJ7000 which I bought for 150.- vs a Lamello that will be >500.- or a Festool Domino for 1k.
We had a lot of work done on our house a few years back, and every one of tradesmen used Makita. I asked our carpenter if they were really good, and he said no, but they we pretty good, lasted quite well, but didn't cost the earth.
I think the ubiquity of Makita also made it easy to swap batteries and chargers between kit, and between people.
This is one of the the best ways to kill li-ion cells fast.
The vise grip crescent wrench on the other hand...
Edit: in Canada. Not sure if they’re the same elsewhere.
They definitely aren't pro-grade, but I've put fairly heavy use on mine over the last 9 years and the only tool that failed was a flashlight. Wore out 3 batteries that I took good care of, but buying $200 in batteries & charger is way better than $1k in batteries+tools.
The only real problem is they look cheap, so if you are into showing off then that is a negative.
I used Dewalt tools at my last mechanic job, and I honestly didn't think they were better enough to justify the price (2-3x ryobi). I haven't used makita, but the Dewalt drills would only survive 2-3 5 foot falls onto concrete, and the chucks were really crappy. My ryobi drill has survived probably 5 falls of the same type, and is still functional. The only real complaint I have is that the plastic absorbs grease, so if you use them in automotive/machine shop environments they start to look really grungy.
I'm sure other brands funnel factory rejects and refurbs somewhere, as well. But I'm not sure where that is.
I borrowed his tools many times over the years, and I've never been let down by anything made by Makita.
I went with Dewalt solely because this device exists:
https://www.dewalt.com/products/storage-and-gear/generators-...
So, you've already got the batteries, and you already need a place to charge the batteries - why not get the added bonus of a true 15-amp portable generator while you're at it ?
It's not true sine wave, but it's quite robust - I have powered decent sized compressors, etc. with it.
* Looks like DeWalt bundles are priced better.
* Looks like DeWalt has better variety of tools in 20V.
* DeWalt is sold at both Home Depot and Lowes, so you run into more sales and has better chance of picking up required tool (and, importantly, accessories) on the short notice.
* Amazon has good DeWalt sales for the Prime Day, etc.
In particular for corded miter saw DeWalt 779 is just a great deal. I upgraded it with the light kit and got DeWalt portable stand.
Since these tools really last, there is no need to get cheaper versions if you can afford it.
For really rare-use tools or accessories I get cheap Porter Cable (ironically owned by same holding as DeWalt) or chinese knock-offs from Harbor Freight.
The tools in the bundle aren't necessarily the same as their stand-alone look-alikes.
Plus, the higher power tools still use the same batteries, just two, rather than forcing you to but yet another set of batteries. I wasn't as impressed with dewalt's tool lineup.
Particularly the battery powered fastener (BX3), it can shoot a 22 ga nail into steel or concrete quietly which means we can do that work in occupied buildings during the day instead of at night.
Of course if you’re a professional carpenter or similar, chances are you’re already aware about what you need to spend more on.
Maybe a few people have done that in situations where the cost of the different tool is thousands and much more than paying someone with the tool (e.g. difference between a chainsaw mill and a proper industrial sawmill or a three bag mixer and a concrete plant and fleet of trucks). It's certainly not a situation most DIYers ever run into though.
The Festool is noticeably more than even the very good competitors - I think the Bosch is about $150 less, and there are others that are a bit more than the Festool.
But it's not like there's a $200 shop vac that's almost as good. There are such shop vacs -- but they're a different product entirely.
https://www.protoolreviews.com/news/sawstop-vs-bosch-reaxx-l...
My understanding is that US-style cabinet saws are extraordinarily rare in Europe, and sliding table saws (Altendorf, Felder, etc) dominate the European market in stationary installations. I don't know whether jobsite saws exist in Europe, which is the market segment Bosch was bringing their technology into. All that to say, in Germany, the issue may well be moot.
The 2017 Festool acquisition appears to postdate the 2016 lawsuit. I have no knowledge of the acquisition timing beyond the easily googleable press releases and news articles. It may well have begun while the suit was pending.
Closer to 3-8% of gross sales was what as demanded on a product that often does not have that much margin to begin with, thus the licensing of the tech would have took a hug part of the profits of each saw sale
Contract Talks ultimately broke down when the companies wanted the inventor to indemnify them from law suits if the tech failed, not over a "$10 fee" like you imply in your comment
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SawStop#Attempt_to_license,_20...
It's unfortunate the technology wasn't licensed out. It's a critical safety feature on one of the most dangerous consumer tools.
That seems to be assuming that consumers would not pay one penny more for the safer saw. I guess if you're afraid of people relying on it, then suing, you can't really market it. Which seems like a good argument for it being mandated by government, assuming it can be implemented in a way that works.
If you happen to trip the saw with flesh, Saw Stop will send you a free replacement cartridge if you mail them your expended one. They'll run diagnostics and verify that it was tripped on flesh, and mail you a new one.
Source: I've been present in two shops for 4 trips on two different saws, all other people. 3 were an aluminum miter gauge fence (Incra), one was fingers. In both cases the saws are known to have been tripped a great many more times than that. Neither saw has had anything but the blade and cartridge replaced.
Also, the safety feature can be temporarily disabled if needed to cut through something like damp wood that might cause a false trip.
Even then, the expensive saw blades can be sent back to the manufacturer and resharpened after such an incident.
Citation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SawStop#Opposition_from_trade_...
An advantage of the REAXX technology is that the blade is fine, only the cartridge is expended.
The creator of the technology created saw stop because the saw manufacturers refused to pay his price for licensing, and has since been very aggressive in enforcement of patents around the technology preventing any competition in the safety space for saws
I can not get behind using IP laws to prevent companies from increasing the safety of their products, for example a few years ago Bosch attempted to bring similar saw stopping technology to market and was prevented do to a lawsuit from SawStop which resulted in a ban on the importation of the technology to the US
Volvo's donation of safety patents is nice, but it is a major manufacturer. The inventor of SawStop was not.
It isn't just that they wouldn't pay the license, it's also that they didn't develop the safety tech themselves in the first place. They presumably applied the Fight Club formula, to determine that the company's liability when people slice fingers off with one of their saws was not enough to justify the cost of actually doing anything about it (beyond writing into the operator's manual "let's don't cut any fingers off, mmmkay?").
If one of the incumbents had invented it, the others would have licensed or counter-patented incremental improvements and cross-licensed, recognizing it as a competitive threat.
But since an outsider patented it, that's a minor threat. What can a little guy do against a 100-year tool brand? And if he has to enforce, that means they're not playing by the rules, which are to pay the inventor's license, or wait until the patent expires.
Why are severed fingers part of anyone's business model?
Is 10% reasonable? Too much or too little? How much value should be captured by the consumers that wear the belts? How much by the manufacturers that licensed them voluntarily? How much from compulsory installations? How much value should be captured by unlicensed installations?
Should the value of raised speed limits count, or just the direct impact of reduced collision injury severity?
Are we discounting the possibility that the patent licensing fee demanded by the saw-stopping inventor was actually reasonable in the US, thanks to hyperinflated medical costs, and the saw manufacturers were basing their decisions on international sales in countries with sane healthcare systems?
it is, however Millions of people operate normal saws everyday with out cutting their figures off, and contrary to popular belief on here Safety does have a cost narrative to it. SawStop over values their tech for many people, which is why other saws continue to outsell their saw because people buying the saws value other things more than the safety enhancements the SawStop technology brings
It has nothing to do with being an "Outsider" and everything to do with SawStops inventor placing and outsized value on the technology.
The manufacturers respond to consumer demand, and many consumers would refuse to pay the extra money (for some saws it would have amounted to several hundred dollars more retail price) for the technology
Perhaps at some point, shops that only use blade-stop safety saws would recoup that cost on lower employee health insurance premiums?
Licensing the technology does not mean it must be put into all models of saw! You don't have to buy the heated seats and built-in backseat entertainment center when you buy a car, either.
Saw Stop is actively engaged, and has been for more than 10 years, in trying to get the government to mandate their technology to be in all models of saw
Bosch could have licensed the technology. This is actually IP that deserves to be enforced. Table saws have been around forever and none of the large manufacturers could be bothered to innovate until sawstop came along?
It's not like everyone can't buy sawstop tablesaws instead if they value the safety of it.
SawStop today refuses to license the tech as it is their only competitive advantage to sell their massively overpriced saws.
They could have 20 years ago when SawStop was trying to license the tech, however the industry (and I concur with them) belived their licensing terms were unacceptable.
It is known that older lathes are generally better - they consist of more metal, the shafts are solid rather than hollow.
edit: I cannot fathom why this was downvoted..
It could be just relentless pressure to reduce costs, after the people who knew why it should be done a certain way had all retired, and a customer base that changed into one that either didn't know how to recognize quality, or valued it less.
Maybe we can do without heat-treating the surface? Maybe just give a quick grind instead of hand scraping the ways? Maybe outsource the castings instead of doing them in-house using the process we'd honed over decades?
A modern Lie-Nielsen is easily as good as the best Stanley planes.
Old tools are hit or miss. Sure, the design on a drill press hasn't changed in 50 years. But the newer model probably has less runout and a better motor. Bandsaws are the same. One old tool you could never pay me enough to use is an old table saw, or radial arm saw. I like my limbs, and the only saw worth paying money for right now is a SawStop. It's like asking someone if they want to drive a car without seat belts or airbags.
1) those plastic gears are sacrificial gears that will break if you drive it too hard but they cost nothing and are easy to replace; the "properly built one" may have a burnt out motor at this point and may be too costly or impractical to repair - and
2) you don't see the lot of them that haven't survived to this day and whose owners have thrown them out and forgotten about them already. And
3) people keep comparing the lowest end appliance from the 50s with the lowest end appliance today, and obviously the modern one is going to be a piece of disposable garbage. The disposable garbage tier didn't exist back then so compare the quality tier then with the quality tier now, and you'll find that modern quality stuff stands up just fine, if not better because of material advances and minor innovations. Yes, sadly, there are probably categories where the quality tier has gone away and there's only garbage left, that is unfortunate.
There is an amazing culture of tool restorers on YouTube that show restores, rebuilds, mods, and others. If you like old tools checkout Hand Tool Rescue (a real purist), and recently Fireball tools has a series fixing and modding an amazing 100 year old bandsaw to make it safe and easier to use.
I have to mention "my mechanics" in that context. His level of work and attention to detail is far ahead of everyone else. He's Swiss of course.
You can still get good use out of a Buffalo drill press from the 1940s. A lot of those machines were made and went into small machine shops, and are just out there circulating around because the basic tool is so simple. (E.g., this well-known woodworker's shop: http://penultimatewoodshop.blogspot.com/2013/05/shop-tour-mi...)
- Ginsu knives
- Kirby
- RediVac
fall under Berkshire Hathaway's Scott Fetzer.
Interestingly, Snap-off (also known as Snap-on) still owns itself regularly. That may or may not be a Good Thing™.
And moar AvE teardown vijeos needed because you know corporate overlords always be hollowing-out once proud brands. Craftsman hand-tools had a lifetime exchange warranty should they break, not that wooden-handled screwdrivers would ever do such a thing.
He'd apparently turned off some constraint check without noticing, and, never having worked in manufacturing, didn't think twice of it.
The workshop foreman had to have sockets machined down in order to install the brake packs effectively.
That designer didn't dare venture into the assembly hall for years!
https://pow-jrk.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/To...
And before anyone tries a "no true tradesman" fallacy, go ask some people who work in the trades. There are select items they likely buy from harbor freight, probably not any "required to do the job" battery powered power tools but lots of hand tools, consumables, shop equipment, etc are likely sourced through them.
Chicago Electric, Pittsburgh Tools, Drill Master, and of course Central Machinery.
80% of the quality for 20% of the price. And 20% off with the coupon!
One great channel is the aptly named "Tool teardown":
- he even compares Harbor Freight entry level variants https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1keZFiKQhPc
- and the HF high grade vs dewaldt https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xK3wsTsauq0&t=441s
So I've been able to buy tools that are not available as AEG tools in Australia (ie they're not offered in the product range here). I purchased them skin only to avoid any charger incompatibilities (and use the AEG batteries and charges with the RIDGID tools).
It might work in reverse that buying AEG from Australia is now a cheaper way to get RIDGID tools because the Australian dollar is quite weak compared to the US dollar.
That said, I'd still point at Ryobi as a good place to start, or to move up from an Ikea toy or whatever. They're fine for occasional, light-duty kind of use, and they have a wide range of cheap 'n cheerful stuff that'll take the 18v One+ batteries - the drill might be dead (until I get around to resurrecting it), but I'm still getting good service out of its batteries in the $100 weed eater I use a couple times a year.
(Also, that $50 Ryobi starter drill, plus a cheap rotary scrubber head off Amazon, makes a great tool for getting rid of stubborn mildew. That's the other thing I like about them: they're cheap enough that you can try dumb shit and not be too upset if it blows up on you, or not really mind running it to death if it doesn't.)
There's a couple things you need to realize: most of them are fighting to have a good name, which means they'll do their utmost to squeeze value out of every cent they spend manufacturing a device. If you buy a $80 Makita drill, it's going to be just as good as a $80 DeWalt drill, or a Bosch or Metabo one. It's more about whether you like the colour scheme, the feel of it, maybe some feature tradeoffs.
Want a better drill? Simply spend more. Yes, Hilti and Festool exclusively make $200 drills, and they're worth it to the professionals. But the $150 Makita/DeWalt/Milwaukee/etc drills are also better than the $80 drills those same manufacturers make. More money means more value. You think a carpenter would spend extra to get a $150 Makita instead of a $80 one if it wasn't worth it? Those brands would be nowhere if they couldn't get the pro's to use their tools.
Looking purely at the brand can bite you in the ass. You might lift your nose at modern B&D, Ryobi or Bosch Green, because they only sell cheap tools, but then you'd miss the fact that DeWalt sells crap as well, they just don't switch the color schemes. Bosch has the same brand, but two colorschemes (green being the cheap ones). Makita sometimes sells batches of cheap powertools in big box stores that are bad and seems to be magically missing from their global marketing.
Before buying a powertool, go to the store and grab it. Feel the weight of it, rub the plastic, scratch it with your finger nails, shake it hard to feel its sturdiness. Turn it on and notice the power, and the control. Go on youtube and see what the pro's use. Lots of pro's don't have any sponsorships, and even if they are sponsored, they wouldn't use the sponsored tools if they couldn't accomplish the work at the level they need to entertain their audience.
Personally, I've got a mix of brands and qualities. When I started out everything I had was shit tier, and any time something either broke or annoyed me with its crappiness I replaced it with a better one. If you've got the money, you could skip that step and just buy good tier everything (just don't buy the DeWalt combo deals, they're a scam) and upgrade to S-tier when you start noticing some things that could be better.
(about old tools: the old tools that are better are all the things that get better when they're heavier. That's decidedly not hand held power tools)
I've owned a cheap one, it failed, bought a festool one, its still square, doesn't fail and the cut quality is great. You don't need to buy a Kapex (the festool miter saw), but something like the bosch, milwaukee, dewalt or makita will survive way longer.
I've bought too many cheap tools to do that ever again.
Still works fine. I think it cost $100.
Of course, it's a bit silly to say that, because you won the lottery, everyone else will. But that always happens, too.
I also make furniture and do finish carpentry (DIY, not for sale), and that miter saw can only be used for rough cutoffs in such work. I have to do all final cuts on the table saw with a sled or a miter jig. So in truth, the miter saw is 90% useless for that work, because even awkward rough cuts on long stock can be done very quickly with a hand saw - just a basic Japanese-style pull saw that costs about $20.
Some of the Tacklife saws that are about $200 are sliders as well as compound miter. I'm skeptical that you can do anything more than rough carpentry on such a machine, because the slide mechanism introduces even more play. Of course, I haven't used the saw.
One of the merits of using machines in the shop (as opposed to hand tools) is that a quality machine is repeatable and predictable. You can't allow a 44 degree miter or a cut that's 1/16th too short in finish carpentry, so you can't use a mediocre miter saw.
The reason you can't ever be making 44 degree miters is that you may have already milled that piece to final dimensions in width and height, and a mistaken cut will require repeating all that work. In fact, such a mistake might not be recoverable if you were trying to achieve a grain match in un-painted work.
Many of the above factors are not relevant if you really just want to do basic framing!
If you have ever built a picture frame that you intend to hang on a wall and have people look at, you will know how hard it is to get good miters off a "just ok" miter saw.
They are decent tools, but most people don't understand they are not a manufacturer, just a distributor.
http://www.powermatic.com/us/en/c/planers/P260/?reset=true
https://www.grizzly.com/search?q=((category:"Planers"))+AND+...
As near as I can tell, the 20" planers differ primarily in what color they're painted. I say that having used and wrenched on both in various shops I've worked in.
I also have firsthand experience with HolyTek's 24" thicknessing planer (no direct link, because god forbid the web actually worked the way it did in 1998), and it sure looks to be the same machine as Grizzly's offering in that size and horsepower rating:
http://www.holytek.com.tw/product.html?cid=2 click single and double sided planer
https://www.grizzly.com/search?q=((category:"Planers"))+AND+...
Grizzly may be organizationally and financially independent of the other vendors, but they sure seem to share manufacturing or sub it out to the same foundries and machining outfits.
Makita was always the highest regarded - assumed they were still a group-brand though, interesting to see them and Hilti are basically their own companies.
Especially if you're starting out with your own firm, having to interact with other types of trades regularly you want to have the look of a pro. B&D doesn't inspire confidence to those in the know as much as Makita or DeWalt.
It's like, people can invent a reason for anything, and either convince themselves their reason is the higher probability cause, or disregard probability entirely.
Honestly, what do you think is more probable: That professionals throw away thousands of dollars buying conspicuous tools every year, or that equipment used in high impact, mechanically challenging situations for 8 hours a day is designed to a different standard than equipment for homeowners who might use it a couple times a month?
My mind rebels so hard against internalizing how people make up so much illogical stuff to suite their preconceptions. I don't want to learn the lesson, but everywhere I look I'm being taught it over and over again.
> That professionals throw away thousands of dollars buying conspicuous tools every year
That's exactly what I'm saying in my experience with general construction tradesmen. Now, the argument isn't that a crappy little 9v drill from Amazon will work the same as a proper engineered brand for specialised equipment, but that I have actual real-world experience of a whole number of pros who have explicitly told me they buy light, named gear for visual purposes more than it being better than some homebrand kit for their needs.
We're talking drills, mixers, planes, sanders etc...
I own a good number of power tools, mostly DeWalt, though I usually check Consumer Reports and other reviews and have bought from other companies when the DeWalt option didn't look like it was holding up well. If I could verify that a homeowner-oriented brand (as opposed to a tradesman-oriented brand) like Black and Decker was literally just re-skinning a higher-end tool and selling it for less, I'd happily take the cost savings, though.
I'll backtrack then and say "it's as good as the offering from their much more expensive stable mate, to the extent my daily use with it was exactly the same". Their QA might be lower then, so not sure whether it's a glowing recommendation of all their units, or just I won the drill-lottery.
Will caveat and say this wasn't a bog-standard entry level drill - it was pretty much B&D's top of the line from their offering at the time.
* Better quality housing materials (better grade plastics, more glass fiber reinforcement, etc)
* Better motor (higher power, more efficient)
* Upgraded electronics (soft-start, closed-loop speed control, etc)
* Higher quality metal bits (better/more expensive designs, better quality materials, better machining)
Whether or not these differences are worth the cost delta for each tool and for each tool user is up to the user. Check through some tool teardowns and you'll see what's happening here. Typically it's not the exact same tool from the same factory line with a new label.
Every other brand is just 'who cares'.
How is Makita at another level from DeWalt in any way?