Craftsman ratchet review (What Happened?) Part 1
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 12 ก.ย. 2024
- As we all know, craftsman tools are not what they us to be. Here I do a quick comparison between the older and new craftsman ratchets. I will probably do another video on the working parts of these ratchets to see how they compare.
the vintage one on the left is by far the best one.
My dad had a very well craftsman equipped/stocked workbench dating back to the late 60's and as a kid my buddies and I were always in the garage using his tools to work on our bikes, skateboards, motorcycles and countless miscellaneous projects. It was a great time. Unfortunately, when he passed away his tools "disappeared".
I saw somewhere that Sears was selling off a bunch of new old stock deep sockets (made in USA).
Thanks for the video and Merry Christmas.
I've got more Craftsman ratchets than I care to admit to publicly, mostly because I now consider most of them to be junk. When you take them apart, a good many of them have cheap plastic parts used inside. The only ones that I would want to admit to owning were dropped from the catalog some years ago. I believe that they were called round head fine tooth and they featured a knurled thumb wheel, and all of the parts inside were metal. I have them in both a regular ratchet as well as a flex head. I find the thumbwheel to be useful. If you want that particular feature, Craftsman is not the only game in town, and I purchased some Tekton ratchets with a thumbwheel a couple of years ago because I became so disgusted with the demise of Sears. When I got out of college back in the mid eighties, I was excited to purchase a 325 piece Craftsman set. Looking back at the purchase, I really only like the 6 pt. sockets and wrenches, as the 12 pt. stuff was too easy to round a fastener with. My current out look is that I'd be careful using any Craftsman tool. Some of the stuff is clearly OK and satisfactory, but not all.
What happened to Craftsman is that there was a "they" to change. Craftsman was a Sears ownd trademark, not a manufacturing company. Sears never manufactured anything. They contracted with manufacturers to make private labelled versins of products for them. It's not an uncommon practice. Sears had "Kenmore" appliances made by Whirlpool Corp and other companies, "Diehard" batteries made by Globe Union (later became Johnson Controls), and electric small appliances made by Sunbeam Corporation. After Wards their main compoetition folded and the competion became big box home center stores and Walmart, Sears could no longer sell US manufactured products and be price competitive with products manufactured offshore. They tried repositioning as a "premium" brands seller, but wasn't successful, and the company essential folded in all but name when KMart bought its assets and renamed the new company Sears Holding. Everything that made Sears, Roebuck and Company what it was through the 1970s is gone except the trademark names, the word "Sears", and a rapidly shrinking small number of buildings from which it operates.
Those are 3/8" ratchets, not 1/2". The "old school" Craftmans shown has the original forging but has been rebuilt with the 3rd generation release, ratchet and pawl. The original had a chromed release button, reversing toggle and a silver shield around the square drive. If you flip them over the first of them said "patent pending" on it handle. The second generation lost the Patent Pending. The third generation had a black release button, toggle and shield. Those 3 all said some version of made in USA and were almost indestructable unless you used a cheater pipe extension on the handle or hammered on them. The 4th generation with the two cavity mechanism has 60% US content, the forging, and just says "U.S.A" The ratchet mechanism was not US manufactured. The last one shown is very close in quality if not construction to the The ratchet mechanism was not US manufactured. The last one shown is very close in quality if not construction to the original one but has a ratchet with more positions and more engaged teeth to handle the stress.
The first 3 generations didn't "suck", they were slightly better than the other 40 position ratchets of the 1960s. I've got 2 of them, they work fine.
Have craftsman tools ive seen all my life made in the u.s, return old ones just to get new ones made in China. Sad isn't it?
Try disassembling then and grease them with a decent grease. Vaseline works if its all you have. I think you will find all of them greatly improved.
Axle or moly grease will work better than Vaseline.
P Schmied
I use molybdenum grease in mine. Most people don't have that.
Super Lube synthetic grease works well.
I'm not a mechanic and use tools occasionally. My tools l bought a long time ago are Craftsman. But lately l've bought Husky and Pittsburgh Pro hand tools and have been happy with them.
I've got late 90s ratchet like the one in the middle. It works great and looks great. However the ratchet on the far right is 3rd gen raised panel flag logo.
I think you mean left. The one on the left is 3rd gen. The middle is 4th and final generation. The far right is not in the raised panel family. First clue was the fact that it didn't have a raised panel on the handle. Second clue was that it was sold as the "Next Generation Thin Profile Ratchet" because they were planning on making a new family and ditching the raised panels. Then they went belly up. The one here is actually the 3rd variant of the thin profile ratchet. First was USA made 60 tooth. Phenomenal ratchet. Second variant was a direct copy, same look, same tooth count, china made. Third variant was identical in look except Taiwanese made and upgraded to 84 teeth. Notable by the "84T" stamped on the handle. Still a great ratchets, Taiwan makes tools leaps and bounds above china manufacturing quality. But still... R.I.P. USA made craftsman ☹️
Hi sir nice post, I personally really like the feel of the new Craftsman the 1/4 is my go to ratchet, it just feels good in my hand, I do worry about the durability, so I did buy a snap-on
These wrenches have been defeating fasteners with a generational warranty for 90 years.
The older ratchet is from the 1970's. If it has an oil port on the front it's the early 1970's.
Great vídeo thanks, good tools but for me gedore is the best.
Whilst I am a fan of USA manufacturing the Taiwan/China ones aren’t junk and some of his arguments against that are not very good like the weight distribution one it doesn’t matter where the weight goes because it’s going to be top heavy when you put a socket on it
If u read the specs on the newer model there are far more teeth then the older one. The teen are smaller but the newer ratchet caches more teeth at once then the older one aswell
My set from 1992 is good . My neighbor bought his in 1947 , still good .
Made in China , not good .
What's crazy is a craftsman ratchet is still 25 bucks if bought as a single piece. It's not worth 10. A hyper tough Wal-Mart ratchet is better and that's not exaggerating (pretty good ratchets actually). Kobalt is better husky is better duralast is better.
I refuse to fill my toolbox with chinese Craftsman ( no offense china). It sucks cuz I have to resort to ebay to get my tools now. it's a pain in the ass, but USA made craftsman and USA Crescent is all I know.... I wouldn't be caught dead buying my tools from a freaking tool truck😅.
The ratchet on the right was made in China (not Taiwan).
Not correct. Chinese versions of the "Thin Profile Ratchet" (one on the right) were 60 tooth and straight copies of the USA made ones, but with slightly different internals tolerances. The one videoed here was Taiwanese made, as it had the "84T" stamped on it. After they moved to the 3rd variant of these (still a copy of the first USA made ones) they upgraded them to 84 tooth and also moved production to Taiwan. The Taiwanese ones are much stronger than the china ones and are actually quite nice ratchets.
The quality has dropped because they don’t have half as many customers as they used to. How many times have you shopped at Sears for anything in the past year? I can count on one hand and my grandpa was a Sears executive. It’s retail. I’m honestly surprised they have lasted this long. You act as if they are successful and are cutting costs which is insane if you think that. They are struggling and proof of that is selling the name to Lowes
Sears Holdings is bankrupt, and has been for several years in all but name. The effective owner has been stripping the organization of all of its assets, and started with selling off ALL of its real estate that was once held by its Homart Corporation subsidiary. SHC assets are collateral against loans from the current Chairman of the Sears Board, who has taken the key trademarks as debt repayments were not made. The Craftsman trademark was sold to Stanley Tool Works who will probably not exercise any of the patents, but lease them to whoever is interested. The Craftsman branded tools Stanley makes or had made for them will be sold by Lowes, Ace Hardware and other retailers, which is the only bright light in this tragedy.
For faster working
Sound is hard to heAr, sounds like mumbling.
Just buy some Matco. Craftsman isn’t worth a damn anymore. I’ve broken countless Craftsman mechanisms.
Great comparison and ratchet collection. I still have my older craftsman style 1/2” drive and is the only ratchet I’ll trust with a cheater pipe.
I wouldn't trust anyone who uses a cheater pipe with a ratchet.
Craftsman ratchets have sucked for a long time. Even when they were made in the U.S., they still sucked. It's just that the marketing had guys tricked into thinking that because dad used them they must be good. Nope! Sucked then and now. The reason people think that they've gone downhill is because there are much better and cheaper options available everywhere. The quality of the craftsman hasn't really gone down it's that the competition has risen the bar and craftsman hasn't kept up.
jhitt79 I own over 10 craftsman ratchets that are from the 60s or 70s and they are the best ratchets i ever had, today craftsman is junk
Brayan Macias respectfully: have you ever used/owned anything else? They're definitely the best if you've never compared them to anything else. I'm not hating on the older craftsman stuff in general (even though I think they've always been kinda gimmicky) because I have sockets that I got in high school that I still use all the time. (20 yrs. later.) I actually like the basic craftsman screwdrivers very much.
I own a lot of tools like snap on, craftsman, husky, and even made in China tools. All of them are helpfull, but im in to vintage tools and l like to restore them. The best tools out there Are snap on and craftsman and for me i like the old types because today its just almost made in china. I think vintage stuff lasts longer and made right like them old school craftsman ratchets those are like snap on to me.
Brayan Macias I haven't been impressed with most hand tools that come out of China. The taiwanese stuff is pretty nice and affordable.
I visit fleamarkets all the time and you can get fantastic deals on tools like a 1952 snap on 3/8 ratchet that i paid 3$ for and i restore it and got it working good but than i sold it to a friend for 20$
Easco used to make their tools and got driven out of business. Vulture capitalists destroyed the company. The Taiwanese stuff is acceptable. When it says forged steel it means something, not just some piece of sintered metal powder blown into a mold. If you need craftsman replacements look for the tiawan stuff first.
Barack Obama happened to Craftsman