ok, i’m bored so a ? about tool origin
I’m bored at work so I will ask the following question because I dont know…
Of the major tool manufacturers; Milwaukee, PorterCable, Delta, Dewalt, Makita, Skil, Black and Decker (obviously not Bosch) which are still made here in the USA?
I heard a rumour Milwaukee was going overseas to compete with yellow, makita just sounds japanese to me even though it says georgia I think, Dewalt tools feel like yellow black and decker tools to me made in japan.
I dont purchase solely on where a tool is made, but I do favor the USA ones, my basement has alot of Milwaukee and Porter Cable, one Dewalt belt sander, one Delta CMS, and a Makita 12v drill.
So anyone know the straight poop on this?
Replies
At least some of the B+D/DeWalt stuff is made by LG (Lucky-Goldstar) in Korea. My old boss went on a business trip there and came back with pictures of their "wall o' products;" it was mostly yellow drills...
did
Blah, yada, whatever, Hi how are you today
I believe you will see some Bosch tools that were made in USA but maybe not new ones. I am sure they own the Skil name/line.
Milwaukee is moving some jobs to Mexico. http://milwaukee.bizjournals.com/milwaukee/stories/2003/05/05/daily19.html
I tend to favor American made tools too but it's a tough call; it really is a world economy. Milwaukee still makes many of it's tools in the U.S. Others come from Germany (jigsaws, cordless tools), and Taiwan (abrasive cut off machine). Milwaukee is owned by the Atlas Copco Group, a Stockholm, Sweden based company. Delta and Porter-Cable are owned by Pentair, a company based in Minnesota. Depending on what you buy, it could come from Jackson, Tennesee, Tupelo, Mississippi, Taiwan or China. Makita and Hitachi both have manufacturing operations in the US. About the only way to know these days is to look at the tag on the tool. Even then certain parts may come from elsewhere in the world.
You really need to look at the specific tool, they are all over the place.
Wood Magazine all list the COA in all of it's tool tests.
Here is one from a year ago for 5" ROS.
B&D - China
Bosch one model US, 2 others Switzerland
Craftsman - China
Dewalt - Mexico
Festool - Germany
Makita - US
Metabo - Germany
Milwaukee - Taiwan
PC - US
Ryobi - China
Now change that to say cordless drills and the mix will be completely different.
I'm wondering why you are saying obviously not Bosch. They married up with Skil a few years ago and built a plant in Carolina.
It was about the same time that Mercedes married Chrysler.
Hitachi was left off the lists here. They are like Toyota, made all over the world, depending on which individual tool it is under consideration.
I have a mix of a lot of tools but I favor Milwaukee and Porter Cable.
Excellence is its own reward!
Just curious. Why should we care where the tools are made? The label really only indicates some level of final assembly. Let's face it, the individual parts at the micro level come from all over the planet. Each of these little parts may be assembled into switches or motors, or whatever all over the planet too. Final assembly is elsewhere still, and they get the 'credit'.
In the end, quality is dictated by the the folks who do the design and testing work. Component manufacturers simply meet their specs. "Consumer nationalism" would seem to be largely obsolete.
So I guess you don't shop Wal-Mart?
H e l l no
some 8 years ago i took a few months off in the winter to restore a vintage Ducati V-Twin motorcycle. in the re-wiring of the motorcycle to eliminate Lucas controls and switches, my search for parts took me to the local Harley Davidson dealer. Harley people are known for their customization of bikes, and the nice folks at the dealer were very helpfull, they brought out boxes of electrical parts for me to look through and compare to see what i wanted for my new wiring harness project. I was amazed to find that almost every electrical part said on the package maid in Japan. and these are all original equipment replacement parts for various harley motorcycles. I guess thats why the harleys are running so well these days, they are using Japanese electrical and suspension parts.
Why the Italians imported the British Lucas electrical components for their bikes is a huge mystery to me, the Lucas are well known to be the worst, surely the Italians could have come up with better in house. Do you know why the British drink warm beer?.....They have Lucas refrigerators, and i have seen the tee-shirts refering to Sir George Lucas as "The Prince of Darkness", and quoting him as saying "A gentleman was not meant to motor about after dark" seriously deficient electrical systems!
Just like my toyota truck which was made in fremont, california i think you will be hard pressed to find much all american tools, in as much as we cast a vote with our dollars I usually try to vote for quality and value
What does Walmart have to do with it? Walmart has goods made in the usa as well goods made not in the usa.Yes, I shop there! What's your point?
re walmart,
I think that they are something like china's 5th largest importer, sure they love to wrap themselves in this cloak of doing right by the working stiff by having low prices so he/she can afford the things that they need but that low cost comes at the price of causing some other poor stiff to loose their job to cheaper labor. walmart is just the beginning of a race to the bottom for America and if we as Americans do not do something about it there will be almost no manufacturing jobs left here. that will take a giant chunk out of the lower middle class.
james
sorry about the rant but this is something that really gets under my skin
Sigh...
Folks have been talking about the loss of manufacturing jobs in America for a hundred years. We still seem to be doing all right.
I love America, and I love the concept of a free market economy... whether it's based nationally or globally.
I buy tools based upon reviews by users.
However, I did check my new Powermatic 8" jointer for the sticker and have to admit... I did indulge in some national pride when I saw the flag. (i guess not all powermatics are still made in the USA)
but then again... i still eat "french" fries.
petmonkey,
it would be different if the products being imported were as a rule better, but for the most part they are not.
I am not one of those die hard only buy in America types, I have purchased many tools made overseas and as a rule they were more expensive and far superior to any I could buy that were made here ( festool, hilti etc.), oh and they came with a longer warranty and better customer service.
to me this is sending a signal to the American tool makers to make better products. most of the tools made here are fine products but there are a great number that could stand improvement. I think that American tool manufactures are still trying to compete on price not quality and there is no way you can compete with china price wise.
back to walmart, it wouldn't bother me so mutch if their commercials were not full of American symbolism ( flag waving etc. ). the only flag that should be waving in front of walmart is the Chinese, I bet if they outsource their management to china they could charge even less..... not to mention the whole illegal labor fiasco the recently went through.
I guess it just comes down to business practices and I do not like theirs. should the government do something about it, probably not. they have already done enough with nafta and trade agreements with china.
..................
regards
james
Folks have been talking about the loss of manufacturing jobs in America for a hundred years. We still seem to be doing all right.
read last week from a reputable source that manufacturing is now 14% of the US economy (I'll find it and link it if you ask)- - the much touted positive job figures for the last 2 months is entirely in the service sector, particularly restaurants (you want fries with that?) while manufacturing continues losses -
I do what I can to support my customers (the cars we've purchased have transmissions made one county south), but it's very much swimming against the current - - our country can't clothe itself, provide shoes for its residents and can only feed itself with the help of $35,000,000,000 in subsidies - - it bodes poorly for us in our old age and our children...
Actually... I was kind of hinting that Americans still have one of the highest standards of living, and we still make more (a great deal more) than most of the people in Mexico, china, Taiwan etc.
And, we still have one of the lowest unemployment rates in the world from what I understand.
I'm just saying that perhaps America is doing pretty darn well,and the oft mentioned loss of blue collar manufacturing jobs just isn't as dangerous to our economy as many people lead me to believe.
And if it's true that manufacturing is only 14% of our economy (i had no idea it was that low), than the loss of manufacturing jobs, while unpleasant and unfortunate, just HAS NOT had that much of an impact upon our way of life over the past century or so.
So, we have agreed that many other countries make fine tools, that America has already lost most of its manufacturing jobs, and that Wal-Mart is pure evil (although I believe that more of Sam Walton's, and his employee's, money is spent right here in the good old USA, regardless of where his products come from).
Therefore, I guess I can, in good conscience, buy tools from Dewalt, Makita, and all those other foreigners.
I apologize for the rambling... my wife left me home with the two boys today :)
Buying american is an okay practice but hardly 100% nessesary nor 100% possible. And as far as using your dollars as a vote, it's a joke. If you were that serious about using money as a barganing tool then you'd be buying more expensinve merchandise and taking a cut in pay....great protest ghandi. Most americans are overpaid anyhow. Unions are great until they get greedy.
I feel that many people are overcome by what the american media gives us when they are in a lull of exciting news. Yes, unemployment is low but it is not low enough to cause panic. Still a small lack of employment hits the front page of the newspaper like a nuclear disaster.
I also feel that the manufacturing move will in the future slow as the countries that the industry moves to begin to develop and unionize and ask for the same higher wages. Then the companies will look for yet another low rate country. Eventually america will once again be that low rate country (look in your history books). And we will complain about how we will only buy the stuff made in china.
That's my opinion
I think that they are something like china's 5th largest importer, sure they love to wrap themselves in this cloak of doing right by the working stiff by having low prices so he/she can afford the things that they need but that low cost comes at the price of causing some other poor stiff to loose their job to cheaper labor. walmart is just the beginning of a race to the bottom for America and if we as Americans do not do something about it there will be almost no manufacturing jobs left here. that will take a giant chunk out of the lower middle class.
James
I agree. The Walmart in my town was built with local union labor. No labor was bussed in from a different country.When I go there to buy milk&eggs I'm supporting the farmer who lives 25 miles from my house.How about when I go there for an oil change and the kid who lives 3 doors down is doing the work.He used to work at Ma&Pa grocery for min. wage. At Walmart he makes a decent wage has medical,401and profit sharing. There are American made products at Walmart,you just have to look.
I don't understand some of the logic of some of people posting. Nobody has a problem with not buying American goods,but when a van load of foreigners are building townhomes next door everybody's up in arms about it!
People shop at Walmart for reason. If folks can buy goods for lower prices, their standard of living just went up. You can blame Walmart, but folks vote with their wallets and inflation stays low. Trade with China has been of enormous benefit to our economy. They sell us assorted manufactured good. We sell them high tech manufacturing equipment, computer systems, software, construction equipment, telecom equipment, aviation and aerospace, entertainment... the list goes on and on.
It's not a one way street. China is a burgeoning marketplace. The fastest growing economy in the world. They love american goods.
With power tools, the "made in America" thing is meaningless. Final assembly was in the USA. So what? Where was the motor made? The gears? The wires. The switch? The circuit boards and transistors? The fasteners? There may be a handful of exceptions, but generally it just does not matter anymore.
"They sell us assorted manufactured good. We sell them high tech manufacturing equipment, computer systems, software, construction equipment, telecom equipment, aviation and aerospace, entertainment... the list goes on and on."
Well, maybe the list goes on and on, but not as on and on as the list of what we buy from them.
We imported $125,192,600,000 worth of stuff from China in 2002 (thats 125 billion). China imported $22,127,700,000 from us in 2002. That's a difference of $103,064,900,000 (that's 103 billion!).
So far this year (through Sept) the difference is $89 billion.
http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/balance/c5700.html#2003
That may be a two way street, but there's a lot more lanes going in one direction than there are in the other.
Rich Beckman
Time to dump the federal Dept. of Education
My issue with Wal Mart isnt if they are more american than anybody else. Its that they destroy the mom an pop business. I have family in a small town in southern Indiana that has this town center with those great two and three story turn of the century brick buildings like you might see in the movie its a woderful life. Wal Mart moved in a few miles away and a couple of years latter that town center was almost compleatly abandoned. Sad state of progress.
It makes you sad, and I'm sure it makes the people who own the town center sad. But why should the people who live in that area pay higher than WalMart prices for everything they buy just to keep you and the town center owners from feeling sad?
People are always sad when competition puts them out of business. The buggy makers, harness makers, farriers, stablers, and horse breeders were sad when the automobile crushed their industry. The passenger railways were sad when air travel crushed their business. The coal producers were sad when natural gas took much of the home heat business away from them. Microsoft is going to be sad when somebody comes along with a working OS and a sustainable business model, but I'm not.
There have been numerous examples of small towns being restored and made into a viable economic comunity that can compete with the big box stores. Whats more you get a more personilized service. Instesead of some minimum wage empoyee who looks at the clock all the time. Yes big box stores are more convienent and have bulk puchaseing too drive cost down. But dont forget they beat up the vendors to bring their cost down making the vendors profit margin razor thin.
>> There have been numerous examples of small towns being restored and made into a viable economic
>> comunity that can compete with the big box stores. Whats more you get a more personilized
>> service. Instesead of some minimum wage empoyee who looks at the clock all the time.
So if these small downtowns can be restored and updated, and the prices are as good as WalMart, and the service is better, why weren't they already doing this before WalMart came to town? And who is paying for these amenities that WalMart doesn't offer. Are the local merchants giving up their profits to pay for the landscaping and restoration and more knowledgable unhurried employees? I think not.
My guess is that everywhere you see such a case, there's some kind of tax credit or rebate to merchants in the downtown shopping area. Which means that the shoppers are still paying more to shop downtown than they would at WalMart. And that means that even the people who prefer to shop at WalMart are paying for their neighbors to be able to shop downtown. And the city council makes up for the revenue lost to the tax credit either by raising taxes or by reducing government services.
And the bureaucratic shuffle the merchants have to go through to get their rebates is pure economic loss, salaries paid for absolutely zero value added. And fixing the boundaries of the downtown shopping area creates an opportunity for graft, under the table payments from good old boys with old commercial buildings that haven't had an operating business in them for years in return for including their buildings in the district so they can get the tax credits.
If you can show me a program for keeping a downtown competitive that imposes costs only on the people who choose to shop there, I'll be deeply impressed.
>> Yes big box stores are more convienent and have bulk puchaseing too drive cost down. But
>> dont forget they beat up the vendors to bring their cost down making the vendors profit
>> margin razor thin.
Well, as a shopper I think razor thin profit margins are good. I certainly don't want my local supermarket making any more profit on my groceries than is absolutely necessary to keep them in business. Why should WalMart feel any differently about the things they buy? Most businesses are faced with the question, If we can accept a lower profit per unit, can we lower our prices enough to attract enough new business to remain profitable overall? Do you ever ask a merchant for a discount? Why should WalMart do any differently? If they demand too much from a supplier, the supplier will either decline to sell to them or go bankrupt, neither of which is a good thing for WalMart, or it will reduce the quality of the goods, which is not a good thing for the WalMart shoppers.
Hey Gang,
My main supplier for new material has been in business since '32. 2 years ago, HD opened RIGHT across the street. You can drive from one lot straight across to the other. My guys are thriving. Their prices are better 95% of the time then HD, and I get 2% on the back side. They have several yards, and all are top notch and doing well. The owners met the challenge head on and have never looked back.
http://www.admoyer.com
CurlyHand Hewn Restorations Inc.
Restoring the past for the future.
There are many good opinions and arguements here, but I am fairly certain that business week recently ranked wal-mart as the single largest importer of Chinese goods.Very bad for our manufacturing industry. Instead of going on about which I agree with , or disagree with , the bottom line is this:for a capitalist society to work best the money needs to be in many peoples hands. The huge chains (Wal-mart Mcdonalds, Home Depot...) do spread a little of the wealth. Sometimes they have good products and good prices . They do, however, run competition under to the point of monopolizing an industry. When I need something that Home Depot doesn't have I can go to...well there is just Lowes left . Hardly any mom and pop hardware stores, no smaller chains, just equally spaced big-box stores, filled with the choices that a market demograph says will sell well . The impact that these huge purchasers/employers has on a society is one of lower standards for the gain of a very few.
Brad,
Not to put too fine a point on things, I wanted to show that a creative, responsive group/company can compete with the "boxes". Remember when your grandfather drank Peils/Pabst/Coors/Ortliebs/Iron City/Genesee Cream Ale/Whatever your local beer was? Then Miller Beer/Anhieser-Busch put most of these local breweries under. Now every town has its own micro-brew(doing very well). Things come around. The boxes will start to shrink.
CurlyHand Hewn Restorations Inc.
Restoring the past for the future.
Thanks for helping me put things into perspective. IIdo believe that things work themselves out . I also see the need for balance in any system. A good example is unions-many of the labor laws and benefits we receive are the results of efforts to organize workers years and years ago. I have also seen firsthand exploitation by lazy and/or greedy individuals who hide behind their locals and the complex rules they work by. Every system needs checks and balances-large corporations included. All that being said-I don't have any answers and want to get off my soapbox and have a good Thankgiving -All of you guys(and girls) have a good one too.
I think I heard a report about that on NPR once, how this small town in Indiana was trying to un-compete with the walmarts and offer things they (bib boxes) just couldnt offer.
I try to avoid wal-mart whenever possible, from top to bottom I dis-like that place, same with Target, Kmart, Lowes and Home Depot.
Back to my original post though, I didnt mention Hitachi because I assumed it was a foreign tool making operation, and Bosch, I assumed they were European.
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/77/walmart.html
Wake up people, and read a little. Walmart isnt good for you.
And efficient supply lines is bad for consumers how? Protectionism is the same as imposing a tax. Worse, it is a tax that rewards inefficiency. Falling prices on consumer goods is what has been offsetting daunting inflation in other areas, such as healthcare, housing, and energy. This has kept our cost of living and standard of living relatively stable.
And poor Vlasic. They struck a deal, their products sold too well, and they have grounds to complain? Sounds like sour pickles to me.
"In the end, of course, it is we as shoppers who have the power, and who have given that power to Wal-Mart."
Incredible article, much more information than just the Vlasic Pickle story.
As I sit here and armchair Q-back things, the only answer I can come up with is that Walmart MUST become a player in the politics of, well, politics, wages, and working conditions in other countries.
If Walmart were to only do business with foreign companies that were on the road to equalizing wages and benefits with the US, the effect would be incredible. Just as they are the "big pencil" with remaining American suppliers, they would be with foriegn suppliers. They are in a unique position of bargaining with other countries because, in many cases, their low cost suppliers probably got their start up cash from (and continue to be subsidized by) their respective gov'ts.
The effect would be the faster opening of consumer markets in those places (how do you write Walmart in Mandarin?) and a fairer, more level playing field for American companies. We certainly can't count on our politicians for putting on this same kind of pressure.
It does not matter how low the prices go if no-one has any money to shop at all. Perhaps the small-town stores that were Walmarts first, best successes will start the trend in motion. How will Walmart react when it sees the real effect of a mostly unemployed customer base in a small town where they helped put the one or two factories there out of business?
Steelkilt Lives!
You're not the only wally world hater around here. I also despise the company.Bigamy: One wife too many.Monogamy: Same thing.
All you guys who are putting the knock on WalMart, do you eat bananas? How about cinnamon? Black pepper? We could grow those crops here. After all, they grow sugarcane in Florida. (And sell the sugar for twice the world market price, thanks to government sugar protection.) Just think how many more jobs there'd be for greenhouse builders if the US had a domestic banana policy, plus the people who actually grow and pick the bananas. Or apples. We grow perfectly good apples here, even without a subsidy. We even have one BT paticipant who grows apples commercially. So why are we importing apples from New Zealand? How many American apple pickers are slowly starving to death because of those New Zealand apples. (They are tasty, though. Much better than Washington state apples of the same variety.) And what about wasabi? We figured out how to make world class soy sauce here. Why are we still importing wasabi?
How many of you are in a position to specify or recommend coutertop material? Do you refuse to specify imported granite? I was doing a little granite research last year. It looked to me like the vast majority of granite slabs installed in the US are imported. I couldn't be quite as sure, but it also looks like a very significant portion of the monument, paving, and architectural granite supplies are imported. I know we can quarry granite here. I found at least half a dozen American granite quarries still in business. I also found references to many, many more quarries that are no longer operating. Shouldn't we be insisting on domestic granite? Shouldn't we be trying a lot harder to talk our customers out of those fabulous colors and patterns they can only get overseas? (Like Blue Pearl, the most gorgeous granite I've ever seen.)
So I guess you don't shop Wal-Mart?
FWIW - I read that 14% of all imports from China into the US are sold at Wal-Mart
I read it was something like 10%, close enough. It's a mind numbing number.
"Dewalt didn't lower it's prices after it moved a plant or two out of the usa."
JP,
Actually they did on some stuff, as well as quality. I've got two DW Model 972 12V drills that I paid $270 and $170 respectively, about 2.5 years apart. Guess which one is holding up way better and has an original battery? Hint, not the one from overseas.
Jon
Jon
I agree, but i think all the tool companies lower their prices on cordless tools after a bigger and better (more volts) comes on the market.
"I agree, but i think all the tool companies lower their prices on cordless tools after a bigger and better....comes on the market."
JP,
True, prices of lots of tools have come down (with their quality for some) , but personally, beyond 12V for cordless drills (and a lot of other cordless tools for that matter) it's a waste unless you're working on a jobsite with no convenient source of AC power. IMO, the sheer bulk of 18V - 24V cordless tools, not too mention their shorter battery life, negate.the convenience of no cord.
Jon
Hi Jon...
Call it laziness or convenience, but me n' the crew use cordless every day, all day.
Friday, we put up 2,000 lineal feet of log siding with our Dewalt 18's.
Thursday, made a few cuts with the cordless circular up on the roof, cut off rotten log ends all day with the cordless recip.
And when we need to drive a bunch of olylogs (a Teflon timber lag screw), we reach for the 1/2" Dewalt 24.
It's just so nice to be up on scaffolding or a ladder and not have to mess with cords. (not to mention the guys insist upon tieing my extension cords into knots!)
My wife has a 12 volt craftsman fer god's sake, and she's a girl!
"Call it laziness or convenience, but me n' the crew use cordless every day, all day."
PTMNKY,
Can't tell if you're agreeing' with me but... cordless tools definitely have there place. Just I have noticed that some people get so used to them, that they forget that the corded tools also have there place and out-perform them hands down in many a situation.
Jon