
Power tool manufacturers and who owns them - js2
https://www.protoolreviews.com/news/power-tool-manufacturers-who-owns-them/43632/
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2mol
TIL that Festool and SawStop are under one umbrella!

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](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!

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WrtCdEvrydy
The best part about it is that SawStop went to each of the tool manufacturers
asking to license their technology so people could be safer. For an extra cost
of $10, they ended up having to build their own hardware because noone took
them up on it.

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ashtonkem
The benefit to the tool maker of SawStop is clear: not only does it save the
fingers of your customers, it destroys a large number of components in the saw
after use. This means that the customer must buy a new motor, mount, etc.
after almost losing a finger; a trade that I personally would be willing to
make.

~~~
mauvehaus
I can assure you that it does _not_ damage the motor, mount, arbor, trunnion
assembly, or any other major components of the saw. The cartridge is expended,
but that is the only part of the saw that needs to be replaced as a matter of
course. Whether the blade survives or not is a bit of a crapshoot, but the
smart money is on having to replace it.

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.

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markkanof
Worth noting that replacing a blade can be a fairly expensive proposition
depending on the blade you were using, but of course the argument is that the
cost of that is far cheaper than medical bills and lost fingers. Seems like a
valid argument assuming it's not a false trip.

Also, the safety feature can be temporarily disabled if needed to cut through
something like damp wood that might cause a false trip.

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bradlys
A $200 saw blade can be resharpened after such an incident. It’s not as
expensive as you might think.

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michaelcampbell
Generally at around the same cost as a cheaper blade. I'm not sure who the
_actual_ market is for hella'spensive blades; the difference in cut quality
I've not actually seen; certainly not enough to justify the expense.

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Chris2048
Here in Ireland wood-turning has a fair following.

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..

~~~
askvictor
I think that for many (most) tools that are not battery powered or (have a
preference/requirement to be) lightweight, older is better. Or at least last
longer. I have a Kenwood A701A mixer that's about 50 years old and going
strong. Things did cost proportionally more back then though.

~~~
throwaway0a5e
"Back in the day" engineering things to last a precise amount of time was
expensive. You couldn't just make your simulation software figure it out, you
had to test, consult data, etc, etc which was often not done (or done less)
and designs relied more heavily on data from past examples, tribal knowledge
and educated guesses. Several expected lifetimes of the object later the only
stuff left in service is the good stuff.

~~~
jbay
That could be part of it. But I think survivor bias generally gets much more
credit as an explanation than it deserves, and I strongly doubt that older
generations of tools would have been designed like modern tools even if, say,
simulation software had been available then.

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?

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deckard1
If you dive into the history of Stanley's woodworking hand planes, you'll see
a 140 year history of bamboozlement going on. A sort of tug-of-war between
consumers valuing quality and Stanley cheapening out on designs. You have
their subpar Definance line, their Handyman line, and probably others from
them. They possibly sold under other names as well. Their main line also went
under various changes through the years. They've been putting out junk hand
planes since the 1940s and perhaps earlier.

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.

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skookum-skuad
\- STAHL (truck bodies)

\- 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.

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zengargoyle
Back in the 1970's my father worked at a steel fabrication plant building
bridges and other humongous things. They would custom order some gigantic
socket from Craftsman, use it on some high torque wrench until it shattered,
take it back and get it replaced.

~~~
lb1lf
At a former employer, a fresh CADdie designed a brake housing with a bolt
circle too close to the outside diameter for a socket to fit over the bolts.
Oops.

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!

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throwaway0a5e
I'm amused that they skip Harbor Freight despite it being an industry colossus
through sheer volume. It's like trying to write an article about what grocery
stores sell what brands of milk and skipping Walmart.

[https://pow-jrk.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/To...](https://pow-
jrk.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Tool-Brand-Behemoths-Tool-
Companies-Who-Owns-What-Brands.jpg)

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.

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capekwasright
Shoutout to [https://www.hfqpdb.com/](https://www.hfqpdb.com/) for collecting
the myriad coupons Harbor Freight sends out in one centralized, easy to use
database.

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vangelis
God bless.

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seph-reed
Ryobi is barely mentioned, but is definitely the most popular amongst the
people I work with. Generally because it's volunteer stuff and everything gets
broken so there's no point in getting something extra nice.

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brodouevencode
I know contractors that use Ryobi because if it gets ripped off, broken, or
lost it's nothing to replace. Site theft is tragically a too common thing when
the economy sucks, like now.

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RandomBacon
Interesting and good to know, but how do I use this information when buying
tools?

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rfreiberger
Personally I use this in terms of trickle-down technology. If a feature
appears on a Milwaukee, it will shortly appear on A Ridgid or Ryobi soon. This
was the case for hydraulic impact drivers, that first came out on the Ridgid
then Ryobi and Milwaukee soon after. But it's really about the entire tool
family and how much does it fit you. Since you're not buying a single tool but
more about buying the battery format. So if you need garden tools maybe down
the line, check out a tool lineup that offers this, even if it's a remote
possibility. All of the tools IMHO are well built and I doubt there's a huge
gap in performance.

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exhilaration
Wait, you're saying that Ridgid, Ryobi and Milwaukee can share batteries and
chargers?

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fragmede
Not sure why you're downvoted, but perhaps apropos for the maker/hardware
hacker-inclined, the packs I've seen are just 18650 cells (same as used en-
mass on original Teslas) inside of a 3D-(re)printable plastic shell, and some
hackable electronics. #righttorepair

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baggachipz
I'm actually surprised there are this many different umbrella corporations
over the listed brands. Judging by other industries (e.g., personal
care/grooming products) this industry seems ripe for more consolidation.

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starpilot
I've seen the Chinese brand TACKLIFE show up on Amazon a lot. Very inexpensive
and decent reviews. I'm looking at their 10" miter saw. Then I see the Bosch
one for 3x the price. What does that get you?

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mturmon
I don't think a miter saw is a good place to economize unless you're doing
_only_ un-demanding work (e.g. rough framing). You really want it to keep a
square adjustment and to have zero play. And it's a tool you might use a lot
for a long time.

~~~
starpilot
Do you have any experience with cheap (<$200) miter saws?

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mturmon
I have a 10" Delta that's about $160. It's not a slider. It advertises as
compound, but setup is not repeatable, so I only use it for 90 degree cuts.
(Perfect example of a "feature" that turns out to be useless in practice.) I
have used it for rough carpentry and it's perfectly OK for that.

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!

~~~
starpilot
What really is "basic framing"? I'm thinking of build a rectangular desk with
a rectangular "apron" of 2x4's for stiffness. Would this be along those lines?

~~~
mturmon
I mean like framing a house, shed, or garage with 2x4s. Not furniture!

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.

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binarymax
Interesting to see Grizzly not under an umbrella. I order tools from them and
they are awesome. I wonder what other companies are still independent.

~~~
luma
That might be because Grizzly doesn't actually make anything, they buy from
Asian tool manufacturers and rebadge for western distribution.

~~~
Loughla
This is the correct answer. They are a distributor that sells medium-end
tools. More expensive than entry level, but less expensive than professional.

They are decent tools, but most people don't understand they are not a
manufacturer, just a distributor.

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wastedhours
Used to do a bit back in the day, every time I got out my Black and Decker 18v
drill I'd get a few mocking comments that it wasn't a "proper" tool. Kept my
mouth shut about it being a rebranded DeWalt for half the price. They didn't
deserve the tip.

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.

~~~
dbatten
How did you discover it was actually a rebranded DeWalt (as opposed to a drill
manufactured to less demanding specs by a company that also happens to own the
DeWalt brand)?

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.

~~~
wastedhours
Don't have any strong evidence to back up my claim unfortunately. We compared
it visually, looked identical, specs sounded identical, and it put up with the
same abuse over an extended period of time (I'm still, 10 years later, picking
bits of concrete out of its air holes).

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.

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nabla9
If you are pro, there seems to be only Fein, Makita and Hilti.

Every other brand is just 'who cares'.

~~~
blhack
I'm not sure what you mean by "pro" but many/most construction workers I see
working use milwaukee tools. I don't think I'v ever seen fein in the wild.

~~~
brodouevencode
You see Fein around sometimes with finish carpentry. The drills are excellent.

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m463
what about snap-on? (they make hand and power tools)

