True Pro quality stuff at BORGS...

[Stephen Cherry]

4. Lowes-Bessey Clamps HD-Jorgensen clamps

Beat me to this one.

Also, the Home Depot I go to used to have a pretty good hot dog wagon out front. Now I need to go the the landfill to get my hot dogs.

[Peter Quinn]

Soooo, I bought a box of 6D plastic collated 21 degree ring shank hot dipped galvanized framing nails yesterday night at the local orange borg. By the time I got the kids fed and to bed every thing else was closed and I knew there was no time this morning before getting to the job site to go to a real lumber yard. Bought the grip tite brand, box of 1000, I knew I was close at the bottom of a large box of senco's and didn't want to run short at the end of sheathing a roof.

So we're having a little cold snap here in New England, at least cold for us for this time of year, maybe low 20's with a stiff breeze? The nails spend the night in the van. I hand the guy I'm working with the nailer with the new 6D borg nails (I'm saving the 8D senco's I have left for some 5/8" sheathing to be installed elsewhere on the building) so he can have at the roof. Two minutes later he climbs off the roof saying "I'm having a bit of trouble with these nails, they keep misfiring and the sticks are breaking up!"

Well, they are the right ammo for the gun, but the collations are made with some cheepo brittle plastic, and when you fire the first nail it shatters the rest of the stick, they go askew, and they start firing out the side of the tip! Real fun to be standing on a roof in a 20 MPH breeze below freezing clearing nail jambs every other shot! Junk. Junk. Junk!!!!!!! That box of senco's was 5 years old and still working great till the last nail. Its been through so many freeze thaw cycles in the truck I can't remember, never a misfire.

So I return said junk nails, and CS rep says "Maybe you got an old box or something?" These are not doughnuts sweety, they are framing nails, and yours are junk!

Moral? Don't put the stick nails at the borg on the list of "Professional quality" items for sale. Do count me as irritated, again, with the borg. I should note that I have bought countless boxes of brad and finish nails from the borg in the PC brand without any problems.

[Russell Smallwood]

Any professional cabinet/furniture maker worth his or her salt should be able to build high quality products using only tools and materials found in the Borgs. Just like any hack can build junk with the finest machines and material available. These home improvement retailers are what they are and provide what the vast majority of us need at a price we can deal with. We don't bash Ford dealers for not selling Ferraris.

Somehow I just can't picture Tage Frid walking through the Home Depot hand tools section and saying "Yes, this will do just fine".

[Chris Mahmood]

Somehow I just can't picture Tage Frid walking through the Home Depot hand tools section and saying "Yes, this will do just fine".

I don't know, have you ever seen that video where he's about to cut a set of blind dovetails, pauses, and then flips a belt sander over in order to give the chisel a quick sharpening? Of course the dovetails come out perfect....he probably could have cut them with a $2 screwdriver that he sharpened on the concrete floor.

[Russell Smallwood]

I don't know, have you ever seen that video where he's about to cut a set of blind dovetails, pauses, and then flips a belt sander over in order to give the chisel a quick sharpening? Of course the dovetails come out perfect....he probably could have cut them with a $2 screwdriver that he sharpened on the concrete floor.

Ok, but I bet that wasn't a buck brothers chisel.

[Barry Nelson]

We are, over here in Australia, about to be invaded by an amalgamation of Home Depot and Woolworths one of the major retailers over here.Dont know when the first store opens as yet,but will be interesting to see if they carry Home Depot stuff. Ryobi.Mliwaukee,Aeg are well represented out here by Techtronic Industries who took over these brands some years ago.We live in interesting times, major competition will come from Bunnings long estblished hardware chain who have taken over a number of other retailers ie Kmart ,Target,GJ Colesetc

[Philip Johnson]

I try to avoid HD at all costs. Years ago I bought a M&K tile saw from a tool store, HD had what appeared to be the same saw with a slightly different model number. Made me wonder what they did to it, by the way it was the same price and that HD model was not available anywhere else, in fact it did not show on the manufactures web site as one of their models.

I found a Mohawk carpet I like at HD so I took the sample to my local flooring place that was doing all the carpet in my new house and asked if he could get this carpet. He said sure I carry Mohawk should not be a problem. Turns out that carpet was made for HD only and once the installer found out what it was made out of said he would not install that carpet in a house he was selling. It would wear and look bad in a few months

Delta faucets another thing that HD had made for them only, plastic internal parts, go to a plumbing supply and the faucet has brass parts. The plastic one may make it a year before it starts leaking and dripping.

A dewalt drill from a big box lasted 3 days and the plastic gears stripped out, took that back went to the tool store and asked for a drill with no plastic gears, got a milwaukee, that was 20 years ago and still have the milwaukee.

So every time I see a Rigid tool I wonder what HD did to make that tool as cheaply as possible. They are trying to save a nickel not build a quality tool. There will be no rigid tools in my garage.

When I need a tool I will drive the extra 35 miles to the real tool store. Professional is just a label that Sears and HD attach to all their tools, it means nothing. If you need to be told its a professional quality tool it is probably not.

Phil

[David Weaver]

Well said, tools does not make the man. That said, I can't even properly use a Stanley plane, why would I buy a L-N? Because I can say, I have one. No, I actually don't, but I wish I could say that. Then I could build junk furniture witha real good plane.

Are we talking about hand planes? Let's not even go there with what the borg sells.

Vintage stanley planes are perfectly functional tools, the quality of which is not to be found at the BORG.

If you want to compare the Borg, you would have to say would I pay extra to get a real plane instead of the "buck brothers" plane at the Borg?

In order to make the stanley vs. LN argument, you have to assume that the BORG even sells stanley quality stuff, and they don't. You've created a false dilemma.

[David Weaver]

Any professional cabinet/furniture maker worth his or her salt should be able to build high quality products using only tools and materials found in the Borgs. Just like any hack can build junk with the finest machines and material available. These home improvement retailers are what they are and provide what the vast majority of us need at a price we can deal with. We don't bash Ford dealers for not selling Ferraris.

What would you do if your ford dealer put a badge on a trabi and called it a ford? That would be a lot more accurate in talking about what you get at home depot. It's a matter of basic functionality.

Ford vs. Ferrari isn't a proper comparison, nobody is shopping for ferarri, they're shopping for ford level and being sold a trabi.

As far as materials go, you're making "high quality" products with bowing birch ply and s4s red oak? Barf.

[David Weaver]

Denatured Alcohol

See the discussion in HT about the DNA at the Borg - it's 40-50% methanol. Not good! I used a lot of the same stuff (in a closed shop in winter), I don't know why I assumed that it was mostly ethanol, that was a bad assumption.

I have bought a lot of similar branded stuff there like you mentioned, though, and do have a couple of ridgid tools, and they are fine.

[Bill Blackburn]

Any professional cabinet/furniture maker worth his or her salt should be able to build high quality products using only tools and materials found in the Borgs. Just like any hack can build junk with the finest machines and material available. These home improvement retailers are what they are and provide what the vast majority of us need at a price we can deal with. We don't bash Ford dealers for not selling Ferraris.

Indeed --- well said

[Eric Getchell]

I've seen numerous people note cheaper lines for a given tool for HD/Lowes. Short of purchasing and disassembling the tool from the big box store and local hardware store, how do you guys know if there are multiple versions for a given model?

And what about on-line retailers, like Amazon? Are they also guilty of this practice?

For example, at some point I need a portable planer (I have a small shop, so don't have the room for a floor model), and FWW gave good marks to the Dewalt 735. Both the big box stores and the Woodcrafts and Rocklers carry it. Is it the same model, or is there something justifying the $70 price difference over raw purchasing power?

[Steve Schoene]

The Milwaukee brand is owned by a Chinese company, not just outsourced by an American company. Ridgid woodworking tools are produced by the same company and are essentially a house brand for HD.

Kohler isn't the same--inside--from the big boxes as from the plumbing supply houses. Moen either.

[David Weaver]

I've seen numerous people note cheaper lines for a given tool for HD/Lowes. Short of purchasing and disassembling the tool from the big box store and local hardware store, how do you guys know if there are multiple versions for a given model?

And what about on-line retailers, like Amazon? Are they also guilty of this practice?

For example, at some point I need a portable planer (I have a small shop, so don't have the room for a floor model), and FWW gave good marks to the Dewalt 735. Both the big box stores and the Woodcrafts and Rocklers carry it. Is it the same model, or is there something justifying the $70 price difference over raw purchasing power?

I think the 735 is a different issue. I think rockler and woodcraft like a bigger margin for power tools than do large retailers.

I can't believe that the planers would be different, it's not much of a consumer DIY purchase like the drills, etc are.

I guess you never know who gets a modifed model without having the manufacturer tell you or without buying them and taking them apart yourself.

Some things are immediately apparent, though, like some of the kioritz (echo) brand trimmers. At a professional supply lawn shop, they are US made. At HD, they are made in china. they look exactly the same, why the difference in origin? the guy at the lawn shop where I get my mowing and trimming stuff didn't believe kioritz made anything in china because the rep never made a peep to him about it, but it's clear as day written on some of the ones sold at HD. Sooner or later, all of the ones at HD will probably be china origin, and some of the china origin machines will make their way into the lower priced models at lawn supply shops, they just hadn't yet when I was buying.

[David Weaver]

The Milwaukee brand is owned by a Chinese company

that explains why they are getting worse.

I made the mistake of passing over the classic holeshooter for mail ordering the new 8 amp drill that milwaukee made to replace it. It has a jacobs chuck, that's about all I can say for it. otherwise, the speed control doesn't feather slowly to a stop like the holeshooter, and the front handle is a junky hose clamp secured kind of thing instead of a threaded handle attached directly to the drill body.

Last I looked, the same drill is now made in china instead of the US. At least I bought early enough to avoid that. Price is the same for the chinese made one as the US made one, though!