Woodwork Post

nailshooter41@aol.com wrote:
...
> Milwaukee products, most of which are now made overseas. That shift
> started well before their sale to the holding company.
...
W/ Milwaukee, don't believe there really was much "shift"; they began
building overseas w/ the introduction of new products. They still
afaik, have all the same US production facilities they ever had.

I've two of the 18V hammer drills; one has a Eastern Europe tag, the
other (actually the newer of the two), US.

--

On Nov 18, 2:05 am, "Upscale" wrote:

> That made me go
> with the DeWalt brand. If I can support mostly local production and get when
> I need, then that's the way I like to go.

DeWalt is a mixed bag or origin, one of the original "mutt" tools.
Many of them are plainly marked with China or Taiwan as their place of
origin. And remember, to be stamped "made in USA", they only need a
certain amount of parts and labor with USA as their origin to be
stamped as such.

My planer box said right on the box "assembled in Mexico from parts
made in Taiwan, Mexico, Indonesia and other countries".

On the box.

I took apart my prized DW 18v drill when it quit working to see if
there was something obviously wrong with it I could fix.

The case was made in Mexico, as was cast into the actual case. The
motor was an old Johnson motor, although I understand that today they
use a Taiwanese motor. No markings on the drive train or trigger, so
no idea where they were made.

Cutting open the battery, they were Panasonic industrial made in
China.

I don't think DW or other major brand makes an honest "made in USA"
tool.

Robert

"Leon" wrote
>
> "Swingman" wrote in message

>> cm" wrote
>>
>>> Are the Dewalts made in the USA? I have an 18 volt Dewalt drill and saw
>>> that I bought about 8 years ago I just bought my second set of
>>> batteries last year and they have proved to be real workhorses in our
>>> home repair business.
>>
>> The DeWalt 18v drill is the most ubiquitous cordless tool on any
>> construction site I've been on in the last 7 or 8 years.
>>
>>>Robert,
>>> Nice score on the Milwaukee tools. I'll check them out today.
>>
>> May be wrong, but I would have sworn Robert ended up with the Ryobi 12v
>> iL?
>
>
> Humm I thought he ended up with the Ridgid. I'll go back and reread.

Ridgid, Ryobi, Milwaukee, what's the difference?

... apparently :)

Looking back, Robert apparently never even mentioned "Ryobi", but alas, when
I think of HD and cheap, that brand immediately pops to mind.

Actually, and judging from what I see on construction sites, a lot of Ridgid
tools, though not the Ridgid of yore, still seem to be pretty * good,
despite their now bastardized origin.

Witness my Ridgid planer, still trucking along after five or six years of
use.

--
www.e-woodshop.net
Last update: 10/22/08
KarlC@ (the obvious)

Swingman wrote:
...
> ... a lot of Ridgid tools, though not the Ridgid of yore, still seem to be pretty * good,
> despite their now bastardized origin.
>
> Witness my Ridgid planer, still trucking along after five or six years of
> use.
...

Those Ridgid tools _are_ the "Ridgid of yore" for them--Ridgid never
made those prior to the licensing of the name.

The traditional Ridgid domain of pipe wrenches, threaders, etc., etc.,
are unchanged afaik.

--

> And remember, to be stamped "made in USA", they only need a
> certain amount of parts and labor with USA as their origin to be
> stamped as such.
>
> I don't think DW or other major brand makes an honest "made in USA"
> tool.
>
> Robert


Of course not.
The way you know your cordless drill isn't made entirely in the USA is
that it's doesn't cost $600.


--

-MIKE-

"Playing is not something I do at night, it's my function in life"
--Elvin Jones (1927-2004)
--
http://mikedrums.com/
mike@mikedrumsDOT.com
---remove "DOT" ^^^^ to reply

"MikeWhy" wrote in message
news:__JUk.5949$W06.3636@flpi148.ffdc.sbc.com...
> wrote in message
> news:63bd4cc1-46c7-4d67-8ac4-469a538b1283@35g2000pry.googlegroups.com...
>> But... they have a promo on now. For $129, you get TWO drills, two
>> batteries, the charger and a softside case. I bit. I often set up
>> two drill when working to do a line of repetition like one drill to
>> drill holes, one to drive.
>
> I got the Milwaukee, $103 at Amazon. Two batteries, one drill, but
> otherwise sounds about the same, lights, fast charger, case and all. HD
> wasn't offering the promo back then. I don't feel a loss for having to
> swap the driver for a drill bit. The change is quick and easy. More to the
> point, though, the 500 RPM driver is a bit slow for drilling. I prefer a
> normal corded drill for making lots of holes. (If it's not lots of holes,
> I guess it doesn't matter so much how often you swap or don't swap the
> bits, or how slow it spins.) It's a great little driver that can also make
> a few holes.
>
> As to who they are, Milwaukee is a US headquarted company, owned by the
> European conglomerate that also owns Ryobi and a few others. Ridgid
> doesn't say much on their website about where and who they are.
>
>Ridgid (the tools) are owned by the same conglomerate as Ryobi. The Ridgid
>is on sale at HD for $99(one drill). The 2 drill was a special buy for a
>limited time only. The Ridgid is better ,IMO, because you aren't saddled
>into using only the Quik-Change bits like the Milwaukee. The specs on both
>are very close and the Ridgid has a Lifetime warrenty on everything.

Dave

On Nov 18, 9:45 am, "Swingman" wrote:

> Ridgid, Ryobi, Milwaukee, what's the difference?

Not much. Warranty mostly.

The guy I was talking to in the store said that Milwaukee is trying to
reach the serious DIY, semi-pro and pro guys with more affordable
tools.

Then he said they are upping the ante on the Ridgid tools by making
them better, with different guts than before and with more sturdy
designs. They are now actively seeking the pro market, and will leave
the DIY to Skil, Ryobi, and others.

So one is going up, and one is coming down on the quality scale.

I still can't get over the fact that the store has a large Hilti
display. These tools are priced in Festool's domain, perhaps a touch
south. Many are made in Switzerland, and seem well built, but
awkward.

Someone will lose rack space. You aren't going to have $450 cordless
drills in a big box stores for long. Especially when no one I know
that isn't in the trades has used Hilti tools.

> Actually, and judging from what I see on construction sites, a lot of Ridgid
> tools, though not the Ridgid of yore, still seem to be pretty * good,
> despite their now bastardized origin.

I think some are better. Their newer line of cordless drills are
supposed to be pretty good, and priced competitively.

> Witness my Ridgid planer, still trucking along after five or six years of
> use.

For about 5 years I used a 14.4 drill that was a Ryobi "Commercial"
brand that I bought at the old Builder's square. That drill was a
stud and was only used for roofing repairs and sheet metal work. It
worked great. It wasn't cheap like today's Ryobi tools, but it was a
winner.

You never know. I don't care anymore what color or name is on the
tools. I just want them to do what they advertise, in the manner they
claim.

Seems to be a trick to doing that, though. Perhaps explains why I was
so pleased with the little Li 12v drill. In reality, it just does
what it is supposed to do...

Robert

On Mon, 17 Nov 2008 23:08:08 -0800 (PST), "nailshooter41@aol.com"
wrote:

>You get two batteries that charge one at a time in 30 minutes. There
>is no memory; they discharge each time they charge.

'Memory' never really existed anyway - except for specific satellite
applications that had a very precisely controlled charge-discharge
regime and a specific battery chemistry. That's not to say an
occasional deep discharge is bad, but it's not good if individual
cells get reverse polarised. I certainly wouldn't go out of my way to
ever intentionally discharge a battery nor buy a charger that did the
same.

Discharging any battery before charging is normally a waste of time
and energy particularly when chargers exist that can control very
precisely the charge curve to ensure extremely short charge times
without overcharging and overheating together with conditioning of
cells to avoid whisker growth.

In the case of lithium-ion batteries now coming into the portable tool
market a full discharge kills them years before their time - lots of
top ups before the discharge gets too much is the way to go.

I routinely run my five year old Bosch drill Nicad's to the point at
which they become incapable of drilling or screwing at a reasonable
speed. Then fit the other battery. I struggle to discharge a fresh
battery before the discharged one is ready for service. In case they
ever go faulty the cost of new ones is so high I'll either re-cell
them with some modern cell, or given the hug falls in the price of new
tools, buy a new drill.


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