Craftsman stuff

[westsailpat]

For some reason most of my stuff has always been Craftsman . When I first started out in the machining world I went to the local Sears and bought a edge finder a mic a dial caliper, ruler and stuff it was all Craftsman , I was not aware of any other place to go . It was good stuff , I was happy . And even before that I would always go to that same Sears to buy wrenches and screw drivers . Come to think of it I got my clothes there too haha . So when I started my shop in the early 80's I had progressed to other stuff , but I still had my Craftsman stuff too . I closed down my shop about 10yrs. ago , everything went the only thing I kept was a 6" Mitutoyo vernier caliper . About 3yrs. ago a friend gave me a 6" Craftsman lathe , so I thought I need a drill press too I looked around at a lot of makes but wound up with a Craftsman . Then my wife bought me a Craftsman shop vac for my birthday . I started buying stuff I needed to tool up and it keeps coming up Craftsman . I bought a Kennedy box , it was beat to shi* the brown wrinkle that Kennedy sells was not in the budget so I bought this red wrinkle paint and stuck on a Craftsman badge (I don't know why) , it just happened . I think it's a Freudian thing , no wait it could just be a quinkidink .

 

[bfd]

craftsman was good back aways. the only thing I never liked was the corded powertools. will not buy them to this day. had a craftsman lathe and was able to get parts from sears. have some craftsman snap gauges, radius gauges and edge finders. still good tools. bill

 

[EmilioG]

I like the old USA Craftsman sockets and ratchets. The V series is still one of the best. Well made back then.

 

[Bob Korves]

I have a lot of old Craftsman tools, including the V series. Those are good tools.

As a teenager my dad gave me a _complete_ 1/2" Craftsman socket set. series BE. It is from the 1930s. It came with several sockets that are in 32nds, and the ratchet is the old crude style with a female drive 1/2" square bit that is reversed by removing it from the 1/2" square hole on one side and replacing it on the other side, coarse ratchet, but bulletproof tough. I have all the accessories for the set except for the breaker bar. Loaned it to a friend and he brought back a cheap POS import one and said "I broke it, but I bought you a new one." Smoke was coming out my ears. Now a have an "almost" complete family heirloom Craftsman BE socket set... I am still using it at times.
http://alloy-artifacts.org/craftsman-be-hcircle.html

 

[wa5cab]

Yeah, I had two complete sets of US made Craftsman sockets, one of them and most of the other one dating back to at least the 1970's. Then some A-H I'm sure from the apartments on the other side of the park broke out the rear window in my Land Rover and stole the set that I've carried in my Rovers for decades. By paying extra, I was able to acquire almost all of the combination wrenches as at least US made. But the rest of the combination of three different standard tool sets is mostly import.

 

[westsailpat]

That's a bummer about the theft Robert . One thing about Sears was their return policy , broke for any reason just return it . Back in the 70's my bud got battery acid on a 1/2 combo wrench and it ate it up bad so he starts telling me Sears will take it back . I got ******, I told him it's not Sears fault you don't clean your tools . Sure enough Sears took it back and gave him a new wrench . I lost all respect for that guy .

 

[wa5cab]

Yeah, I agree.

In all of the years that I've had Craftsman tools, the only one that I've ever broken is that sorta stubby screwdriver with the wide blade. And they gave me a replacement. I probably shouldn't have been doing with it what I was doing when it broke. But on the other hand, it shouldn't have broken doing what I was doing.

 

[Nortryder]

I love craftsman stuff for their warrantee. I've been pulling stuff out of the trash that people have been chucking for years. I have more screw drives and pliers than you can count.

 

[Bi11Hudson]

An anacronism here, I know I'm out of time but not out of place. When I was stationed in Jax Fla.during the early '70s, I bought a Craftsman Machinist's chest, the same as pictured. It was the same wrinkled brown finish as a Kennedy. Those days, I paid a little less than $35 bux for it. BTW, I'm still using it for model building stuff.