Cheap tools...

Some Euro news of interest, a little outrage from Sailing Anarchy, and an interesting factoid...

In a world that vests far too much importance in the price of things it's easy to get caught up in the more expensive = better mindset... Especially where tools are concerned.

Not too long ago a reader of this blog and a friend dropped me a line where she admitted in a slightly apologetic tone that they used Harbor Freight tools aboard. As a longtime user of Harbor Freight tools myself, I am not unacquainted with the reaction that mentioning you use Harbor Freight tools (or Black & Decker for that matter) in tool fetishism circles and face it, no one likes to be insulted, so we users of affordable tools do tend to keep our tool choices on the down low.

Which is not to say that all cheap tools are good but, if you're careful and discerning in your tool choices, your inexpensive tools can last just as long or longer and work just as well as their much more expensive brethren. Longer in fact (I'm looking at you DeWalt!) as I've personally had better luck with inexpensive tools than the more expensive tools everyone lauds as being the best. Of course, the really great advantage of inexpensive tools is that when they fail they're a whole lot cheaper to replace than an expensive one.

Since we were speaking of Harbor Freight, you might want to check out a post today over at Tool Guyd where he compares an expensive tool to a Harbor Freight tool and finds that they are actually the same tool. Which really does kind of says it all...
 
Listening to Rachid Taha cover the Clash

So it goes...