Stanley Black and Decker buying Craftsman brand from Sears

[Knifemaker]

SacramentoMike posted: The older I get, the less important buying really good tools seems to me. sigh.

Like.

Bought a "home handyman" set from Home Depot a few months ago for Aunt Kelly's house. Strange mixture of English/metric, and included an 8-inch adjustable wrench. Haven't seen nor used one of those in a long time.

The adjustable wrench - was it SAE or Metric?

Never thought to check mine, no wonder it keeps stripping nuts lol.....

Thats why I have both an 8 inch and a 200mm adjustable wrench. I can work on both metric and SAE!!

[img=[URL="https://thumbs4.picclick.com/d/l400/pict/252461746307_/Vintage-Craftsman-8in-8-Adjustable-Wrench-44603-FORGED.jpg%5D%5Bimg=https://thumbs.ebaystatic.com/images/g/l-gAAOSw-CpX~cTN/s-l225.jpg%5D"]https://thumbs4.picclick.com/d/l400/pict/252461746307_/Vintage-Craftsman-8in-8-Adjustable-Wrench-44603-FORGED.jpg]

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Do they make left hand models?

 

[08FJR4ME]

Knifemaker brought back bad memories for me. Back in the 80's I left a whole stuffed full of craftsman tools box on the side of the highway. That broke my heart. I had to start all over again re purchasing month after month new tools.

 

[Bugman]

Knifemaker, There sorta kinda is a left-handed, metric adjustable wrench. The Bahco adjustable wrenches use a left-hand threaded adjustment spiral nut that is extremely annoying when it opens instead of closes. Bahcos are very well made BTW. Here is a picture of two old wrenches (not Bahco) to show the difference.

In this case it could be simply that one is made in the northern hemisphere, the other in the southern hemisphere or that this is a typical example of reverse engineering.

Here is where you can find some other things every garage needs: https://kalecoauto.com

 

[HotRodZilla]

Sears seems to be in the toilet. My absolute favorite thing from them is the Diehard series of batteries. They have served my vehicles well, and I'm hoping they don't disappear.

On the bad end, our water heater is leaking. It's 15 years old and probably was the cheapest the builders could find. I looked around and decided to get a 50 gallon Kenmore natural gas heater from Sears. After being called back, twice, i qas told those water heaters are back ordered until the beginning to middle of March. So, I'm going to Home Depot tomorrow to get a 50 gallon Rheem. Because Sears cannot stock things correctly, they just lost a guaranteed $500 sale. How many times does that happen before they go under? I'm figuring they are about to find out.

 

[Fred W]

"My absolute favorite thing from them is the Diehard series of batteries. They have served my vehicles well, and I'm hoping they don't disappear."

Not to bust your bubble, but Sears doesn't make their own DieHard batteries, and never has. The good ones over the years have been made by Johnson Controls, which is one of the biggest battery manufacturers in the world. They do make a good quality battery. For a period of time Exide made the DieHards and they were of a lower quality.

The EverStart brand (marketed by Walmart) is also made by Johnson Controls. I just had to replace an EverStart Maxx (higher capacity) battery in my wife's 2003 Saab 9-3 Vector in the past month. It wouldn't hold a full charge anymore, and would discharge to 12.4V overnight with only the normal 9 ma parasitic drain. When I took the battery out I found that I had fastened the original receipt to the side of it in a plastic bag. The receipt was dated 2009, so that battery had endured 8 years of New England winters. I called that good. And, I had paid less than $80 for it. Cost me $118, for another one. Battery prices have gone up over the past decade.

 

[Knifemaker]

Likely true of many companies..."They don't build them like they used to..". And Sears, specifically their Kenmore brand, is a prime example. My mom had a Kenmore fridge and washer. They both worked fine for almost 20 years. Our first one broke down in one year, oddly right after the warranty expired. $120 repair, worked OK for three more years until we replaced it with a newer model. Five years later, it died. Cost to repair was $425 for just the part. **** that, bought a new one at Home Depot for $399.

We had to have Sears come and fix both our stove and our fridge within the first year. (The stove two days after installation) Luckily fixed free under warranty.

After the washer problem, which I found out later was an inherent issue with that model that Sears didn't want to admit to, I no longer will buy any appliance at Sears, and probably won't ever shop there for anything else.

 

[HotRodZilla]

"My absolute favorite thing from them is the Diehard series of batteries. They have served my vehicles well, and I'm hoping they don't disappear."
Not to bust your bubble, but Sears doesn't make their own DieHard batteries, and never has. The good ones over the years have been made by Johnson Controls, which is one of the biggest battery manufacturers in the world. They do make a good quality battery. For a period of time Exide made the DieHards and they were of a lower quality.

The EverStart brand (marketed by Walmart) is also made by Johnson Controls. I just had to replace an EverStart Maxx (higher capacity) battery in my wife's 2003 Saab 9-3 Vector in the past month. It wouldn't hold a full charge anymore, and would discharge to 12.4V overnight with only the normal 9 ma parasitic drain. When I took the battery out I found that I had fastened the original receipt to the side of it in a plastic bag. The receipt was dated 2009, so that battery had endured 8 years of New England winters. I called that good. And, I had paid less than $80 for it. Cost me $118, for another one. Battery prices have gone up over the past decade.

That's good to know. I figured Sears didn't manufacture the battery, but just haven't looked to see who actually makes them. Even if sears goes under, I'd like to stick with something very close. I think battery problems are bullshit and do what I can to avoid them.

I have never used the Walmart batteries. My dad did, and it seemed he was always having problems, but if I know him, he was abusing the shit out of them, so maybe not the batteries' fault. 8 years is a good run. That's what we've been getting from our DieHards. If I can continue that, I'll be happy!