Is there anything that really sticks in your craw about tools today?

[Thomas Hotchkin]

Hello Tom,
I don't have an antique Stanley Tools catalogue around, but you may want to check yours to see if the awl was sold by the box (half-dozen or dozen) as I believe Stanley did for small and inexpensive items in their catalogues meant for dealers. After all, a complete Bailey #4 plane must have been selling for around $1.50 - $2.00 then.
Regards, Andre

Andre
You are so right, I went back to Stanley's Catalogue, and in fine print the $3.00 is for 12 Awls just about 25 cents each.

Scott
You can have this Blue Spruce Awl for $55.00 plus shipping. Tom

[Peter Quinn]

This thread reminded me I need another scratch awl for the home shop. The one in the work tool box is a highly effective cheap Chinese off brand affair. Not even a stanley, probably bought it at the end of the tool aisle at the Borg, works fine. In the home shop have a home made thing I found when cleaning out a friends house when he got sick and had to sell, claimed his father had made it.....I keep it for sentimental reasons, he's passed on now....the awl is terrible. Just ordered the Klein that Scott linked. Nice up grade, I will retire the old standby, give it an honarary place in the hand tool holder....near the back!

Where to spend your money is a complex equation, each person is different. In some cases I'm firmly in favor of buying domestic for quality reasons or to support the home team. In other cases, I'll buy the most cost effective option and keep more money in my pocket, allows me to live like a king using cheap over seas labor, gives them a job, if I had to personally support the entire nation I'd go broke. Stanley started as a cheap alternative to costly handmade English and German alternatives, I've never thought of them as the penultimate tool manufacturers, their move to over seas manufacturing is hardly a suprise. Someday the Chinese may demand a living wage on parity with developed nations, perhaps production will move to less developed nations.....perhaps a good awl will cost $55 at that point. It's the way things go in a complex world. I for one am less interested in bemoaning the loss of this nations manufacturing dominance in some distant past I'm not sure ever really existed so much as in our minds as I am trying to find my place in the reality with which I'm faced daily.

[Mike Ontko]

Interesting thread; so many uses...or misuses out of such a simple tool, and so many directions to go on this discussion

My first introduction to using an awl was in sheet metal layout, where it's used just like you would a marking knife on wood. And as mentioned earlier in this thread, it also functions as a decent center punch (much easier to see the point than on a standard sized punch). I can even remember reading an instruction once in a DIY type of veterinary manual on how to use an awl for relieving a cow of a distressing bloat condition.

What sticks in my craw the most regarding tools...or any product for that matter in today's market (even food), is how much junk is out there and worse--how it's become the accepted norm.

[Andrew Joiner]

Test results can be surprising even when you have a country of origin preference.
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthre...rs-Test-Review
I like to test things before I decide on adding them to my shop.

[John TenEyck]

We probably have more choices today in what we buy than ever before. If you want to spend $40 or $50 on a scratch awl you can, even though a nail driven into a chuck of wood and sharpened works just about as well. Some guys love pretty, expensive tools made in the USA, Switzerland, wherever, others use whatever gets the job done and don't care where it's made as long as it's cheap and does the job. Me? I like old American iron, not because it's necessarily made better but because it works well enough and I can get them cheap. All my stationary tools, save one, are pre 1960. Delta BS, Dewalt RAS, Delta lathe, Unisaw. I paid about $500 for all of them. They work great after I spent some time restoring them to good function. But if I could have found a Hammer, Aggazani, etc. for the same price I'd be signing their praises. Country of origin is of far less importance to me than value.

John

[Jeff Ranck]

My departed father, a life long shop teacher, would have called me "Primitive Pete" if he caught me doing that.

Hey, I'm not the only one who remembers those movies! I found one online the other day and it brought back good memories of shop where they actually taught us how to use tools!

[Jerry Wright]

When I watched them, I think they might have been film strips!!!

[Lee Reep]

Primitive Pete! Wow, I haven't thought about those films in many years. My junior high (1960s) had wood shop, metal shop, and drafting class. The shop teachers I had were incredibly gifted and certainly got me hooked on designing and building things.

[Garth Almgren]

Speaking of Primitive Pete: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkse0OBDIVQ and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OC4_VUvIgig

[John Vernier]

The thing that sticks in my crawl, are the people who complain about to many choices. it took all I had to not punch a guy in the face the other day at my local WW store. he started off complaining about how the new LV planes aren't needed, then went on and was complaining about all the boutique saw makers and how they wen't needed either. His premise was that we now had to many options and that it was making beginners confused. God forbid a beginner might spend some time learning about what they need before they start buying stuff.

Indeed. You want to see confusion, look at a circa 1900 Disston saw catalog, or any edge-tool catalog of the period. Of course, most average homeowners would have bought what their local hardware store carried, then as now. Most of the finer distinctions were for the pros to choose from, and the catalogs rarely explained nuances of function.

[Larry Edgerton]

Box stores. They are responsible for the decline in tool quality with the lessons that they learned from WalMart. Every time I walk by the Porter Cable display of junk tools I get just a little depressd.............

Larry

[Kent Cartwright]

I think the biggest thing the erks me about stuff today is the "throw away in a few years" mentality. Whether its dishwaters/washers/dryers or hand tools, making stuff out of cheap plastic, knowing it has a short lifespan, just seems crazy. The tin-foil hat conspiracy theory part of me almost thinks this is "planned" by the manufacturers, so they can sell you another product for some crazy expensive price, ten years down the road, as most people don't know how to and won't figure out how to fix stuff.

I mean, when is the last time someone replaced the brushes on a motor on something that wasn't a big ole hunk of iron? Nowadays, that tool is long gone in the dustbin before the brushes are ever even close to needing work.

Kent

[Brian Holcombe]

Andre
You are so right, I went back to Stanley's Catalogue, and in fine print the $3.00 is for 12 Awls just about 25 cents each.

Scott
You can have this Blue Spruce Awl for $55.00 plus shipping. Tom

Have one, it's a great tool and made well.

I'll get up on my high horse for a brief moment. I like to support the small tool makers in the way that I can, since they care about quality and produce a great product.

If you purchase a cheap, poorly made tool you're telling the manufacturer that you don't mind the decline in quality.

[Myk Rian]

For the 1 millionth post on SMC, I was presented with this Awl/Knife set. I made the cherry box for them, and use them on almost every project.

[Moses Yoder]

I wonder what the people on this group would do, the average of them, if they were faced with the decision of buying an awl for $4 or $55? A lot of what I see on these boards, here and the Coleman forum, is posts bragging about what a good deal they got. In other words, people are proud of buying something that is worth more than they paid for it. Then we blame the manufacturers for making cheap tools. We are the manufacturers.