Sears Sells Craftsman Brand, Will Close 150 Stores

[hunter]

75. I've got quite a few Craftsman made-in-USA tools...

... hand-me-downs and tools I've found in thrift stores or garage sales.

Unfortunately Craftsman started drifting toward the Harbor Freight model of "Lifetime Guarantee," which is "sure a certain number of tools will break, but they're so cheap we'll happily replace them. But we know you won't."

A craftsman can only tolerate a certain number of bruised knuckles when a socket or wrench breaks, or power tools that fail when you need them most. (My most recent experience was an inverter that spontaneously went BANG! and released the magic blue smoke. It wasn't doing anything strenuous, just charging my brother-in-law's phone.)

It's not all crap, however. Many Craftsman tools are still good, and so is some of the stuff you find at Harbor Freight. (There's also a large hacker society that turns certain inexpensive Chinese tools into much better tools by reworking or upgrading whatever parts makes them crap.)

As Mosby said above, Stanley will probably take better care of the brand than Sears was.