The Value of Cheap Tools

[Petrol & Powder]

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.

 

[mattw]

Very well said... I have never been rich, but my dad always taught me that good tools save time and pain... We farmed a small family farm up into the 2000's and repaired our own equipment. Sometimes we had to work with nuts that were 2.5 inches or bigger and a Snap-on breaker bar in 1 inch with 6 feet of pipe on the end would get that one nut to the required 850 ft/lbs of tension. Cheap open end wrenches would spring and slip, killed knuckles, cheap screwdrivers would slip in the screw up under the console in a tractor and lead to drilling the darn thing out. We always had Craftsman, S&K, sometimes Mac and or key 1 inch drive socket set was Snap-on that dad pieced and parted together over a lifetime from auction finds.

Yes, those cheap often disposable tools have their place, but when it has to be done, they do not do it.

 

[Bisley]

Don't forget the time involved to walk into Ace Hardware or some such with a bullet mold, trying to find the $1 Allen wrench to fit, and the hassle to explain to the service person how it is employed. If I get Ikea-furniture leftover tools, the first thing I do is examine it for loading-bench suitability. When they round off or get lost, I always seem to have another.

I have sprue plates to polish, and I am still kicking myself for tossing the small glass plates from the middle of the dead coffee table...

 

[Rick]

Ikea furniture? Hhmmm . . . I only have one thing to say about Ikea furniture . . .



One thing is for sure, the really cheapo tools that come with Ikea furniture will outlast the furniture.

 

[Charles Graff]

indeed there is a place for high end and bargain tools in the shop.

 

[RBHarter]

If I could count .......

The up grade replacement I paid the difference on too . Imagine if you will a an airplane guy with electricians screw drivers for all of the inspection plate screws .......

Carbide construction 7-1/4" blades for Skill etc saws . I bought a lot of the 3 for $25 store brand over the $22-27 per ea Oldham etc blades . That lasted half as long but cost only 1/3 ...... I didn't cry as loud when I hit a nail either .

Some tools I bought because they felt better than others rarely were they a che...... inexpensive tool .

Sometimes even expensive tools are cheap .
Having worked several trades over 40 yr I can honestly say that is very very true and it cuts deep both ways . I've purchased several limited use/specialist tools . I've had to fix them to make them work , they were marked MAC Tools , but appearently seconds or something . The tools off the truck were $35 more but better finished . I've also purchased some expensive tools that were just junk and it took 3 tries to get the job finished .......

 

[Ian]

You don't always need the BEST tool, but you do need the CORRECT tool.

When my tool dollar goes further, I can afford more of the correct tools and I find this often of more value than a few of the best but not always correct tools.

Sometimes, though, only the best will do the job. You have to know when to spend more money.

 

[Petrol & Powder]

Sometimes, though, only the best will do the job. You have to know when to spend more money.

That's the truth.

I seek good tools but occasionally, I'll end up with a "not so good" tool that is good enough.
Classic example was a brake light out, girlfriend's car, far from home. Purchased a 1157 bulb (probably two in a blister pack) and the cheapest screw driver the store had. Ten minutes later, we were on our way. Problem solved and now have a spare cheap screw driver. That's the kind of tool you just give to a stranger that needs it.

Or when I was helping a friend with an old Ford F-150. He had some problems that I was prepared to fix but I only had the specific tools I thought I would need. In the middle of the job I learned he needed a fuel filter. Ford had that funky quick disconnect for the filter but you need a specific tool. Mine was 30 miles away. I purchased the cheapest one to be had at the parts store, finished the job and now I have a spare.

 

[Petrol & Powder]

Ikea furniture? Hhmmm . . . I only have one thing to say about Ikea furniture . . .

View attachment 16073

One thing is for sure, the really cheapo tools that come with Ikea furniture will outlast the furniture.

I can't tell you how many times I've helped someone move and helped them assemble their new Ikea furniture.
Seems like they threw away half their old stuff so they wouldn't have to move it and replaced it on the other end of the trip with the Box-O-furniture from Sweden.
Yeah, the tools that come in the flat pack are often better than the thing you are assembling but sometimes you do the best you can with what you got.
On the plus side, it was a lot easier to carry a kitchen table up three flights of stairs when it was in a cardboard box !

 

[Gary]

indeed there is a place for high end and bargain tools in the shop.

I see what you did there; well played.

 

[Walks]

I have tools that were handed down from My Grandfathers and FIL.

I'll gamble on a single use cheap tool, half the time it works. the other half I buy Quality. Because the cheap tool broke. I'll oil it up and put it away just in case I might need it again in my lifetime.
If not, it'll be there for someone who will need it. Well Preserved and ready to go.

And I guess I'm luckier then most. My ACE Hardware has a Bolt Room, they got any king of screw, nut, washer, etc. You could want, from tiny to Big.
I have walked into My ACE with a POS Lee mold and been set up with a drill, tap and screws for a sprue plate locking screw.

 

[JonB]

Back when I was working as a independent contractor on multiple jobsites, people would borrow tools...I could have been a jerk and said, "no way", but since I didn't really have co-workers, just other people working on the same jobsite, I found that it's better to have friends who work on the same jobsite. So, after having these guys losing (or not returning) a couple of my tools, I learned a couple things, these guys didn't care if I offered them a harbor freight wrench or a Snap-On wrench....I assume you are following me here...and the answer is YES, I did have "extra" tools in my kit, so I could offer some cheap junk that I didn't care about when lost.

Another good use for cheap junk tools, is when you need to customize a tool for a "one-time" use. most of the control panels I build were very customized, and sometimes, getting at a screw/nut/fastener was difficult to say the least, so I'd customize a tool to make it easy, but when that job was shipped out, I never needed that custom tool again.

 

[Petrol & Powder]

Ah, customizing a tool. I have a large line wrench that I heated, bent and ground until it was a burner wrench for an Optimus Marine stove. Cost me a good line wrench but was faster to make than to wait for one shipped from Europe and ultimately was far less money.

 

[StrawHat]

When I was swinging a hammer in construction, I had two sets of tools. Mine, the best I could afford when I bought them or replaced them and the loaners. The loaners were tools I got at pawn shops or HF type places. Usually at the dnd of the job some were missing. No big deal.

Kevin

 

[Rick H]

Everyone need an extensive set of everyday CHEAP tools....for the kids and neighbors to "borrow".