I’m sure alot of the craftsman and husky tools are made by the same outside company.
Husky and Craftsman are just names that Home Depot and Sears use. The actually products are made by companies such as IRWIN, Klein, TTI, Bosch, champion, etc. Same with Ridgid in Depot. They own the name and Ryobi/emerson makes a majority of the ridgid products.
Home Depot prefers to cut out the middle man and sell products that are sourced from company’s they either own or have control over. Yes, they carry some powerhouse names as well, such as DeWalt, but when Ridgid came in, DeWalt lost around $22m in depot sales per year.
More margin=more greed=more money.
There is so much I could go into about how the big boxes suck the life out of companies, but im tired, and you all could care less.
<end rant>
craftsman stuff blows except for the fact its cheap and you can always find a sears to take it back to. husky is pretty good, i believe they are made by stanley actually. i have a husky ratchet. the gears in it have soooo much less backlash than craftsman its not even funny. feels almost as good as the mac i have (which has outlasted probably 30 craftsman 3/8 ratchets no lie).
Isn’t Dewalt the dame company as Black and Decker and a few other tool power tool makers? I thought I read that somewhere. Just like car parts, there are only a few manufacturers.
the gear mechnisms always wear out. all it take is it to slip into neutral on me once and bash my knuckles and then the rathet goes back to the store (after going for a short flight across the garage into a hard object). they wear out so much (1/4 are even worse) that i’ve given up on them and started buying good brands instead. just for noting, my fathers Mac 3/8 ratchet is about 25 years old, used when he was a mechanic and he finally had it rebuilt about a year ago for the first time.
for general hand tools though you really cant beat the price though and they are genereally decently made.
i also prefer a husky tool to a craftsman ive got a few husky extensions and reducers 1/2 to 3/8 especially and i cannont break the things i broke my mac reducer and had to buy a husky in the heat of battle from the depot and its been going strong ever since! deffinatly more impressed with husky then what ive seen from crapsman
Just FYI, you cannot take Broken Husky crap back to the store and get a free replacement, you now have to mail it in, at least as of last week when I tried to return a broken ratchet and they gave me a 1-800 number to call, and said they would give me an address to send it to, and they would mail me a new one.
