Is there an age you reach where you stop buying used tools for cheap? Because I need to reach that age. I have so many tools oh my god. Garage sales and auctions were a mistake.
Is there an age you reach where you stop buying used tools for cheap? Because I need to reach that age.
As far as stupid behavior goes, I've seen worse.
Do future generations a favor. Keep a label with any of the valuable or unusual tools that says what it is and why it has value. That way if you die or whatever, the estate people might not just toss it in the garbage or throw it in an auction bin with a bunch of random junk.
The next generation doesnt give a frick that a craftsman screwdriver was made by western forge, so old man gramps arbitrarily thought it was worth a lot more money than it is.
Its not any better than a chinese one off the shelf.
The only people who highly value them are the old fricks who are dying out.
>yellow bug hands slapping the keyboard for this post
>i have no argument
-the post
False and moronic. Good older tools will always have a market, because people need to get the job done and globohomosexual likes to make that impossible by discontinuing the tools that just werk. Let's take your screwdriver example. I had a Mastercraft screwdriver literally snap the tip right off trying to drive a wood screw into a 2x4. Mastercraft is a semi-respected brand despite being Chinese, yet I still had one of their most basic tools catastrophically fail on me. Can you imagine this shit happening with an old American made screwdriver? Not fricking likely.
>Good older tools will always have a market
To who exactly?
>people need to get the job done and globohomosexual likes to make that impossible by discontinuing the tools that just werk
The only people who genuinely believe this horse shit are the old fricks who are dying in droves, and a few misguided youngins who arent actually going to pay the premium the dying boomers are trying to command for them.
Its more of a justification for their treasure hunting taking precedent over actually using tools, or its cope they cant afford new.
The market gets smaller every single day, especially as those same boomers who love to walk around the hardware stores and have gobbled up Harbor Freights wiener for their new tools.
There has even been a shift from the every mechanics who love Tool Truck tools, now relenting and saying Gearwrench, Carlyle, Milwaukee and even the Harbor Freight tools are just as functional for a much lower price.
And they arent spending their free time garage saling for beat up tools, theyll just buy new off the SnapOn truck or at Harbor Freight when they want it.
>Can you imagine this shit happening with an old American made screwdriver?
Yeah?
There is NOTHING special about old american made screwdrivers at all. They werent expensive back in the day, they were built to a price point too. There is no special sauce, no special metallurgy from the 70s that was somehow lost to time.
This goes for every single standard tool youll find at a garage sale.
>as I have an eye for good tool brands
NOW it all makes sense.
Good job being the connoisseur of buying old shit instead of actually using it.
I guess you really love the pats on the back and sense of authority you feel when giving away tools and going on rants about the "good old days"
Too bad anyone who knows what they are talking about are going to roll their fricking eyes at someone like you.
I don't think you understand that there is a difference in what they put in the product, there's literally a special sauce the Chinese put in their tools, and it's called scrap, junk, waste - and it's all just dumped in with your metal - and in general the tools made with the "Chineseium" is a poorer quality - it may not appear so when you buy it, they polish it up, and put a nice American name on it - but the difference is in the ability to torque it, use it for a dozen years and not fail or chip or break apart from using it on it's intended use.
Old tools are a dying thing, sad when you understand why the new shit sucks too.
Nothing more satisfying than using a brand new "impact bit" to drive a #8 Robertson and shearing the tip off the bit before the impact even engages.
This, screwdrivers today are a joke, you can literally destroy the whole top in single harder screwing purely by arms, using cheap materials in tools should be punishable by death
The only problem with this is that you can empirically test tools and what happens every single time is that differences are found and the gap between the best and worst (usually correlates to cheapest and most expensive) tools are as large as an ocean and all of the Chinese crap are barely good enough for some small diy applications but instantly get hard filtered by anything remotely professional or complex diy
This isnt 1993 anymore where you had moderately priced american made tools on the shelves next to the absolute worst possible imported tools which were a fraction of the price.
You are blindly regurgitating garbage your grandfather said, for a time period that was 30 years ago.
The actual empirical tests which are ample and easy to find on youtube show that moderately priced import tools of today are extremely well made tools that exchange blows with Tool Trucks brands that are exceedingly more expensive.
There is a point of diminishing returns in which price vs functionality very quickly falls off a cliff with modern tools.
And nobody is ever sitting here claiming that some 70s craftsman is anywhere near as good as brand new off the truck SnapOn handtools.
>buys chinesium tool
>dies
many such cases
>t.
Yeah but the generation after that might value relics of American manufacturing
>might value relics of American manufacturing
Anyone who has bought 00s era "american manufacturing" that wasnt high end tool truck brands is laughing at you.
>Auction people google it
>Stick it up for double the price
>Can't sell it because everyone googled it
>Dump it
>Is there an age you reach where you stop buying used tools for cheap?
Its not an age, its a change in priorities.
Some people spend their free time garage saling and thrift shopping, and enjoy buying a box of 9 identical slotted screwdrivers even though they have 10+ more at home in a toolbox already.
The time invested adds up, the money spent adds up.
Your priorities arent actually building things, honing skills. The priorities are buying 40 year old tape measures.
It makes sense for a 16 year old who has no money and wants to get tools cheaply.
Ive been there and wasted WAY too much time doing so.
It makes sense for the old man who used to build things but cant anymore, so he walks the hardware stores and garage sales to get out of the house.
What sense does it make for anyone else who should actually be using the tools he has?
You might as well be thrift shopping for vinyl records or books or rare cassette tapes.
Youll never use the screwdrivers, they arent making you a more versatile PrepHoleer
You are treasure hunting in piles and piles of garbage, baby clothes, and old people knick knacks.
You should be out welding something up instead of nickel and diming yourself with old shit tools you arent going to use.
No the garage sales near me are mostly people selling everything the have because the housing market here is crazy and their house tripled in price in the past 4 years and just want things gone so they don't have to cross country in a massive truck. I give tools as gifts to people and they love it as I have an eye for good tool brands. No I don't spend every second of my time going to garage sales I just hit a few on the way home from work every once in a while. I would rather have too many tools than too little.
This
I like hitting estate sales on the last day and asking if I can fill up a box for $5. Last one I went to I fricking murdered it on a ton of old school shit. Duro, Indestro, Wizard. Dude ran a Western Auto back in the day and was packed to the gills with it
Did you sell them all to morons on garage journal, or do they just sit?
You dont ACTUALLY use old shitty straight cut sockets right?
>Wizard
>Shitty
Do they sit, or are you rounding off your fasteners with shitty straight cut sockets?
Yes
I don't buy for cheap, I buy for my convenience based on decades of experience and when I get a an auction load I want (say welding equipment or machine tool tooling) many hand tools just happen to be there.
I'm not under space constraints and have multiple shops. I disperse my minor tools so they're ready to hand and it gets shit done way faster. My trucks have toolkits too and it all gets used, often. Having lumbar damage it's far easier to have ubiquitous gear then one central setup.
Who are these people who tear up hardware with old sockets? I don't round off hardware. At all. The only shit I end up removing by grinder or gas axe or mill or drill was mutilated by morons who apparently used slip joint pliers or pipe wrenches for everything.
If a tool works I use it and when one pisses me off into the trash it goes. Not a problem for over four decades so far.
>Who are these people who tear up hardware with old sockets?
Its basic physics with all old sockets and box end wrenches using objectively bad straight cut designs.
I know some people are proud of using 10lb six tooth plomb 3/8" ratchets and straight cut sockets, but nobody in their right mind would actually use that shit.
Its overly large size to compensate for poor metallurgy is just a failing in engineering, not something to be proud of.
And its a fricking burden to use. And in many cases with modern cars and machinery, its impossible to fit anywhere.
The reality is, a HART brand ratchet set from walmart is going to be more usuable in every sense of the word, and its not going to eat up your fasteners either.
>was mutilated by morons who apparently used slip joint pliers or pipe wrenches for everything.
Or you know, straight cut sockets.
There is a reason not a single company has made them in the last 30 years since the patent ran out on flank drive.
>Is there an age you reach where you stop buying used tools for cheap?
I'm 55 and I have mostly not done this. I did buy a nice used vice for like $5 and give it to my brother, a weller solding station at an estate sale for $5, and a coax end compression crimper. but mostly I have bought new.
now I did inherit a pile of tools from both my mother and my father. I would say that about 30% of them were cheap garbage and I donated them to goodwill.
daddy never played catch with little baby boy?
yeah bullshit.
>yeah bullshit.
Craftsman is the joke brand you buy for your boomer because he already has too many #1 grandpa mugs.
Their value exists in the minds of people too old to work.
Pre- kids, the wife and I yard sale-ed religiously.
Relationship building, frugal living, and 1 stop shopping.
That was Saturday. Yard sale and cut the grass, then clean up our finds if time permitted.
Fun memories and I have a garage full of tools.
Now I just yell at kids all weekend and wish I were at work
Garage sales arent what they used to be anyways
Fricking this. I stopped going to yard sales 2-3 years ago as they're all literal crap that goodwill wouldn't even accept. We're talking plastic salad bowls, scuffed up TV trays, as seen on TV shit, VHS tapes, those hideous 90s prints of paintings of a gazebo covered in pink and turqoise flowers where all the colors are faded, half empty bottles of perfume, mismatches glasses and chipped mugs. The absolute state of yard sales.
That's why I get all that stuff at the dump (aka The Dump Store). Because if you're looking for garbage, you should go where it's free
I just bought a 200+ $ box of files for 10 buts at a yard sale, they will last me years.
>200+ $ box of files for 10 buts
What the frick did you just write?
He obviously bought a box with $200 worth of files in it for 10 bucks... Files can be expensive if they are name brand.
And to answer OP if there is an age where you stop buying used tools for cheap, No I don't think so. Once you get "enough" of a certain type of tool you will probably just switch to something else. What you are seeking will change, but there will always be something. Or you will run across deals so good you just can't pass them up.
For example, I just bought another 6.9 IDI diesel engine, transmission, transfer case, front axle and chunk of frame from an old Ford. Do I have an immediate use for it? No, but the price was good and it was available now, so I picked it up for future use.
Or do I need another bench vise? No, but there's a guy on facespace marketplace selling a 4" Wilton bullet vise for $75, so you bet your ass I'm messaging him right now.
>He obviously bought a box with $200 worth of files in it for 10 bucks...
Files are consumables, and the fact the person had a whole box of files and sold them cheap pretty much means they are old and dull.
Old dull files arent worth much more than 25 cents, and only for some blacksmithgays to heat up and hammer on.
I've scored boxes of files that were near new and new at shop liquidations. Ditto all sorts of tooling. That's common. My (rich) machine shopownerbro like many machinists largely outfits his shop at liquidation sales and auctions.
When you know your shit there are deals to be had. I scored four Kurt milling machine vises and two good quality "older Taiwan" Kurt clones for fifty bucks each because the other buyers were apparently put off by them looking like giant granola bars from chips and old style cutting oil. Two even had the rotary base so self and bro (we split the load) now have nice mill vises for less than a single new vise would cost.
If you don't know what to look for then don't go that route but most machine shops are furnished with used equipment and tooling. I'm eagerly awaiting the next recession as I've Wells-Index lust.
Those screwdrivers were always shit. I wouldn’t open a paint can with those Black person screwdrivers.
>Those screwdrivers were always shit
wrong
I have a coffee can of 9mm sockets because Tractor Supply had them on clearance for like .02 apiece.
I don't think I've ever used a 9mm socket once.
>I don't think I've ever used a 9mm socket once.
It's like ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife
I have like seven 3/4" drive breaker bars for te same reason. They were $1.50 apiece
Oh and some 1 1/4" taps that have sat in the little plastic sleeves for years because they were .50
Whenever I make socket rails I always throw away the 9mm, for 3/8 drive I put in a 21mm
so I have 8-19mm + 21mm without the 9mm, it's efficient and fits on most systems because for some reason they add in a 20mm slot that no one uses
Ooh. I like that.
I used to have a pair of bicycle pedals that required a deep 9mm to adjust the bearings. That's the only thing I've ever used it for.
My "made in USA" craftsman screwdrivers are cheap metal with a thin chrome covering for hardness. They look just like op's pic. They are my worst screwdrivers, not even worth dressing with a file as they wear. I can't imagine buying them on purpose at a garbage sale.
Usually I use a multi tipped screwdriver until I lose a tip or the PH2 tip gets slightly worn. That's when I'm not using a disposable impact rated tip because power tools are faster. Collecting tools to have a boomer hoard doesn't appeal to me. But again, my garage is where I park my car, not where I store "collectible, rare, and antique" nonsense. I buy tools for use, not as a collection. Other people obviously have different lifestyles.
stop buying junk that you don't need
invest in good quality tools, more than 1 set if you're concerned about losing them
wallah, problem solved
hording is a mental illness and you will never shed that habit
>having the same Flathead 20 times
>all shit without strike cap
we fix our agriculture gear and own like 50 screwdrivers from 4 generations, but that's something i cant wrap my head around
The 2010s called, a 1000 NM impact makes most of your wrench and ratchets obsolete
i feel that,
but selling them is to much hassle, and just tossing them feels wrong.
>The 2010s called, a 1000 NM impact makes most of your wrench and ratchets obsolete
On ag gear perhaps but impacts don't always fit in recent vehicle engine bays. I fricking love my impacts but there are many places they won't fit.
I am slowly running low on big flat head screwdrivers
>bent
>tip broken off
to be honest I abuse them heavily
>should get use a proper prybar
That's really what they're for. When's the last time you saw a slotted fastener that large?
I grew out of that phase by buying a house hours away from where I used to live.
Collecting tools is fun until you have to move all of them to a new place.
I gave away so many duplicates and shit I just never used.
Still have at least 20 different pliers though. . . .
I inherited all my tools from my father, and you’ll pass yours onto your son…if you have one.
None of those are ISO 9001, why would you ever buy them?
I would never buy a used tool unless it was some artisan shit
If I buy a tool its because I plan on using it for my craft regularly, I want to be confident and comfortable with it
"Harbor Freight is down the hall and to the left."
There's a market in my city where they sell used shit, it's full of tools for really really cheap and i'm talking about good quality stuff not just some chinesium garbage, last time I bought something there it was one of those big ass wired drill made by hilti with the box and everything and I paid 30 bucks for it.
So I don't think i'm ever gonna stop buying used tools
>another hoarder thread