If you’re giving tools as gifts this year, try to get the nicest tools you can. A good tool will be a joy to use every time. A crappy tool will be a crappy tool every time it is used.
Price is usually a pretty good indication of quality. A $39 Black and Decker drill is not the same as a $200 Dewalt. The cheap B&D drill will not have as much power, the battery will die sooner, the gears will slip more often, and it may not even drill straight. The Dewalt will work great every time and the owner will exclaim after every use “Damn! I love this drill!”
Don’t get the 101 piece set of anything. Most of the time I don’t even have a need for 97 of those pieces. I’d rather have 10 really good drill bits instead of 100 crappy drill bits.
Don’t get those screwdriver sets where it’s one handle and a bunch of different bits. They don’t work as well as regular screwdrivers and usually 99% of the bits are useless.
Don’t buy from Harbor Freight or other discount tool places. Sometimes you can find adequate tools, but you have to really know what to look for.
If you don’t know tools, ask for help. You want to get the right tool for how it will be used.
If you can’t get a good tool, get something else. For example, $30 will buy some really good coffee, but not a lot of great power tools.
This also applies to other types of tools. For instance, those “learn how to knit/crochet” kits? They have crappy, crappy, CRAPPY needles or hooks. They will bend or break. They are Not Worth It. The yarn in such kits is extremely bad, too. Even an experienced knitter/crocheter will be frustrated with it, and a beginner might very well be put off the hobby altogether.
It’s possible to get a great price on quality items…but you have to know about the subject.
I am reminded here of a pretty little golden hammer that had several screwdrivers in the handle. My mother got it for everyone one Xmas, and crowed about the low, low price. The hammer was suitable for driving in thumbtacks. The screwdrivers were made of such soft metal that they bent if you looked at them funny.
Last Xmas, I bought my husband quite a few quality wood vises, in all sorts of sizes. I knew that he wanted the vises, and I asked the guy at the hardware store if I’d picked out a good selection. My husband was absolutely delighted, and actually finished up a few projects.
Yepper. As a rule, it’s tough to buy a gift for a person with specialist knowledge in a field (like woodworking) unless you have similar knowledge.
So, it’s tough to buy an auto mechanic a useful tool unless you know a lot about auto work yourself.
I have a friend who enjoys woodworking (something I know a bit about) and every year I go to Woodcraft and look for weird things that look interesting and useful, but that he’s unlikely to have. It’s fun.
Last year I went generic and bought him an anti-fatigue mat. I knew he didn’t have one, and worked in a cement-floored garage. But even if he did have one, a person can normally use another anti-fatigue mat around the home or workshop.
Another safe tool purchase is a good clamp. A craftsman can almost always use another quality clamp, and there are a bevy of weird ones that are fun to buy and receive.
I mean if you’re happy making due with some POS tie/drill/blender but don’t give it as a gift. Dial your plans back and get a better version of a less expensive item, or bite the bullet and get something halfway decent. Otherwise you’ll wind up as the subject of one of the posts in the ‘Worst X-mas Gift You Ever Recieved’ thread.
Just avoid going to the opposite extreme and paying a lot of money on the assumption that the higher the price the better the product. Some products are deliberately over-priced just to catch people who fall for this fallacy.
In a recent thread, somebody was asking about a cast iron skillet they had seen for sale online for $149 and if it was worth it. Other people said that you could buy a cast iron skillet that was just as good for $25.
I’m big on quality in tools, but IMO this example is not a good way to make the point.
Cordless drills are at least 90% of the market today (and with good reason). The weakness in all models - even the expensive ones - is battery life. And when the batteries go, replacements routinely run 75% of the cost of a new drill (which, given that it’s a couple of years newer, may well have some other features that make it desirable). So you do well to expect just 2 to 3 years from your drill, and thus to buy not the cheapest model, but certainly not the most expensive.
(And you can put me down as skeptical that holes drilled with an inexpensive drill aren’t straight.)
Corded drills are a different story. I have a friend who owns a Milwaukee drill that was given to him by an old guy who bought it around 1945. It’s an experience just to run it for a bit and appreciate the bearings and the sound of its motor. It’s clear that with decent care this should still be an excellent drill 100 years from now.
Yeah, sometimes it’s a judgment call: if my mom asked for a cordless drill, I know she’s pretty much just planning to hang some pictures and move a shelf. My brother might ask for the same tool, but he’s planning to build a new workshop and do some major renovations on his house. I’d choose different tools for them. And if my mom and my college-age niece both asked for kitchen knives, I’d buy one really nice one for Mom, or a set of twelve for the same price for DaNiece.
But I have learned through the years to be very specific if someone asks me for a wish list for gifts: cheap tools are absolutely fine for some things (I happily own a cheap cordless drill, because I use it to hang pictures and do minor projects, and a high dollar one would be wasted on me,) but I don’t want cheap kitchen stuff, because I use them daily, and there’s no point in replacing something that utilitarian annually.
I suppose the only way to prevent this is for the hobbyist to maintain a tool wish list, with exact model numbers. That way, he or she can keep track of future things (hmmmmm… that DeWalt biscuit joiner sure would be sweet, but I just can’t justify it now), and the gift giver can peek at the list and give a surprise.
ETA: About those ratchet screwdriver/bit sets… I agree with the thumbs-down, except for the kind that say “Snap-on” on the side. That’s what mine says and it is one of my favorite tools.
If you need to keep your cost down, you can always go for the perishable parts of woodworking, repairs, or hobbies. I made my Uncle a gift basket one year with duct tape, WD40, Elmer’s white glue and wood glue, waterless hand soap, a bunch of shop rags and I forget what all. The basket was a plastic bucket.
I don’t see him often enough to know what he does or doesn’t have in the way of tools. But sandpaper and stuff gets worn out or used up, so he’ll always need more. And he’s a practicle guy. The year I sent him homemade cookies, he got all excited over the plastic container I sent them in. He had acquired a fledgling woodpecker and was able to use it to raise meal worms.
Yep, those “combo tools” are crap-cheaply made and useless. Who really ses a combination wrench/hammer.
This is the kind of crap you see at yard sales-usually in the original box, and never opened.
To my mind, this is a spot where a gift certificate can be appropriate. Include a note “I wanted to get you something for X hobby, but I’m not an expert. Please use this towards your hobby.”
I, at least, would rather have a gift card than a crappy item.
My dad has a shelf full of old (corded) Milwaukee and Craftsman power tools. It’s U.S.-made hardware that was made in the 1940s and 1950s. Those things are bulletproof. But that was then, and this is now. Today, Craftsman tools are complete junk. At least the things with motors on them.
When I was fixing up my basement last year, I needed a right-angle drill to drill holes in the studs for wiring and plumbing. I wanted a good one, and research indicated DeWalt made the best ones. I paid $250 for a *used *DeWalt right-angle drill. But it was worth every penny. It’s an awesome drill.
I also have a 3/8 Milwaukee hand drill I bought 20 years ago. It’s been a good drill. Not sure if Milwaukee still makes good drills.
My boyfriend is a woodworker and guitarist. His interest in those things is specialized enough that I don’t even try to buy him guitar gear or woodworking tools without knowing what exact model he was interested in. I’ve asked him to be specific about models, brands, best place to buy from, etc. on his Christmas list (although he knows it is not a guarantee he’ll get any particular item just because he listed it on his Christmas list).
In situations where you can’t ask the person what exactly they had in mind, I definitely think there are situations where a gift certificate is really better than trying to guess what they want.
When receiving gifts, don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. Say thank you for your $39 drill, and if that isn’t what you want, return it, spend another $160 and buy yourself a $200 drill.
Don’t expect people who don’t know your hobby to understand your hobby well enough to buy the correct tools. Take it as a flattering compliment that they remember “Dangerosa likes to bake” and got you some cookie sheets from Target.
Of course I say thank you. Who wouldn’t? But with the holiday season coming up, this thread is an FYI to people thinking of giving tools as gifts.
There are many price ranges for tools. Some categories of tools will be expensive (like power tools). Some categories will be cheap (hand tools). Whatever your budget, find the tool which is good quality for that price.
For example, if your budget is $40, find tools where $40 will get you a high quality tool. Don’t look at power tools since $40 will be a the bottom of the range. But $40 could get some really nice clamps, wrenches, socket sets, etc.
Good tools don’t have to be expensive. One tool I love is this $20 Leatherman Micra pocket tool set. It’s well made and I appreciate it every time I use it.
The problem with tools is that if you don’t know tools, you don’t know what to look for. Mom thinks all drills are the same. When she sees the $40 drill next to the $200 drills, she thinks she found a great bargain. But in reality, the $40 drill is barely adequate for the job. So if you’re thinking of giving a tool as a gift, either give a high-quality tool or find a non-tool gift instead.
Amen to that: my wife bought me a 1955 model SKIL saber saw at a yard sale. It was almost brand new! Heavy, all-metal construction-much better than the plastic suff sold today.
