So this is where we are at!

[Challenger RTA]

Get name brand like Starrett or Mitutoyo (Japanese is better than Chinese)!

That really bothers me. That compering Japanese to Chinese. How cheap can you go and have precision! That's the choices there are! The precision is now down graded. An Instrument made in the Switzerland or USA was the cream of da cream. I know there are other good instruments it just a point
So this is where we are at!

 

[Xcudame]

I have a lot of Starrett made in the USA tools. And actually the good Mitutoyo tools are not much cheaper than a Starrett tool. There are a lot of Chinese tools that are cheap and just so much junk!

My son was drilling some holes in an 1/8" thick piece of box steel using my set of Made in the USA drill bits for his first time. Prior to that he had only used the cheapo Chinese drill bits. He could believe how much faster the USA drill bits cut!! They may cost more, but the USA drill bits last longer and cut faster. Time = Money!

 

[Challenger RTA]

My son

I have junk tools. harbor freight and other. They are what I call sacrificial tools. I bend, cut, welded, twist or what ever it take to do the job. A one trick pony and might be used again if it survives.
My son. He used HF tools and others when he was younger. Lost or broke no big deal. He was working with a HF grinder and it died. I hander him a Milwaukee grinder and he was stunned with the performance. An other time he was struggling with a Craftsman 14mm wrench changing an alternator. I went and got a long reach Snap on. And in on movement it was loose and coming out. He said: Really and you letting me work with junk!

My neighbor was having her shed tore down. She said go and look to see if there was anything I wanted. I came across a good it's going to go now beater. My son seen it and wanted it real bad. About a month later where in a junk store at the tools area. He stared on one end and I on the other. Son of a gun he found one just like mine for buck. He was grinning from ear to ear.
I think someone at the steel mills here was making them at work.

 

[Xcudame]

Son and tools got me thinking: Where I worked, when my son was about 6 years old, gave me a emergency roadside kit. It was completely junk! The jumper cables were so small, you'd melt them trying to jump a car! The sockets looked to be chrome plated pot metal! I remember bringing it home and setting it on the kitchen table. My son was tall enough so his head was taller than the table and he saw the kit! "Dad, how old do I need to be to have a kit like that?" I look at him, looked at the kit, looked and him again and pick up the kit and gave it to him with the condition, "Don't clip the jumper cables on the dogs" (he didn't as far as I know)!! Over the course of the next few years, I found sockets in the yard, the jumper cables where torn in two and the clamps went missing! Screw drivers with the handles broken off turned up in the yard now and then. He had more fun with the kit than any adult would for certain!

 

[Challenger RTA]

Screw drivers

Lawnmower find them!