Petrol & Powder
Well-Known Member
I was just reading another thread and it reminded of the value of cheap tools.
I am very much in the camp of "Buy it one time" when it comes to tools. Most tools are a lifetime purchase. I buy good quality tools and I take care of them. I have watched friends and close family purchase the same cheap tool over and over because they just couldn't bring themselves to spend the money. In the end, they spent far more than the cost of one good tool. Plus, the broken tool cost them productivity and sometimes more.
Buy it once, cry once.
And yet, despite my philosophy of buying high quality, I will admit that I have some cheap tools. In fact, I have some incredibly cheap tools.
You don't need a good screwdriver to open a can of paint or jump across the terminals of dead starter solenoid. Or you're 200 miles from home and purchase a brake light bulb and the cheapest torx screwdriver the parts store has so that you can replace the bulb in the parking lot. That $0.75 10mm wrench you keep in the console of your truck so that you can take the tailgate off. The Allen wrench that came with some piece of Ikea furniture.
These are the tools you didn't set out to acquire but you ended up with them anyway. These are the tools that if you lose one you don't even blink.
These are not the tools you reach for when working on anything remotely important but the ones that end up the in junk drawer in the kitchen of the glove box of your car. This is the stamped sheet metal socket for replacing a water heater element that you loan to your neighbor and never expect to see it again (and almost hope that you don't).
These are NOT the Craftsman, Snap-On, Thorsen, S-K or Mac tools that you had to eat Cube steak and Ramen noodles for a month so that you could afford to buy them. These are the disposable tools that you didn't dispose of.
Despite their incredibly low quality, they still have value.
I am very much in the camp of "Buy it one time" when it comes to tools. Most tools are a lifetime purchase. I buy good quality tools and I take care of them. I have watched friends and close family purchase the same cheap tool over and over because they just couldn't bring themselves to spend the money. In the end, they spent far more than the cost of one good tool. Plus, the broken tool cost them productivity and sometimes more.
Buy it once, cry once.
And yet, despite my philosophy of buying high quality, I will admit that I have some cheap tools. In fact, I have some incredibly cheap tools.
You don't need a good screwdriver to open a can of paint or jump across the terminals of dead starter solenoid. Or you're 200 miles from home and purchase a brake light bulb and the cheapest torx screwdriver the parts store has so that you can replace the bulb in the parking lot. That $0.75 10mm wrench you keep in the console of your truck so that you can take the tailgate off. The Allen wrench that came with some piece of Ikea furniture.
These are the tools you didn't set out to acquire but you ended up with them anyway. These are the tools that if you lose one you don't even blink.
These are not the tools you reach for when working on anything remotely important but the ones that end up the in junk drawer in the kitchen of the glove box of your car. This is the stamped sheet metal socket for replacing a water heater element that you loan to your neighbor and never expect to see it again (and almost hope that you don't).
These are NOT the Craftsman, Snap-On, Thorsen, S-K or Mac tools that you had to eat Cube steak and Ramen noodles for a month so that you could afford to buy them. These are the disposable tools that you didn't dispose of.
Despite their incredibly low quality, they still have value.