| Jazzbass |
07-05-2014 10:07 AM |
After I posted this I started doing some research on what was going on. I think I knew Sears didn't make anything themselves, but was never quite sure what the process was.
So Sears has always used other companies to make their tools, and most tools have some sort of mark that says who made them. Most of their screwdrivers and pliers are made by a company called Western Forge, and stamped "WF". Western Forge is a US based manufacturer which explains why those tools are still marked "Made in USA". WF also makes (or has made) screwdrivers for Husky and others, so if you're in Home Depot and see a screwdriver marked "WF USA" its the exact same one as a Craftsman from Sears.
For wrenches and sockets, the vast majority of them since the 1960s have been made by a company called Danaher Corporation (a local DC company, incidentally). Danaher made tools for Craftsman, Armstrong, and many others in the US until about 2010-2011. In 2010 Danaher, a giant conglomerate, merged most of its tool divisions with Cooper Tools to form the Apex Tool Group, based in Baltimore. Apex was then sold to Bain Capital (yep, Mitt Romney's company) who now owns them. Apex moved most of their manufacturing to China since being spun out and purchased by Bain. Apex is currently making all of the Chinese Craftsman wrenches and sockets.
Apex is a huge company and makes most of the import based tools you see at Home Depot, Lowes and other places where cheap, shitty tools are sold. Look them up on Wikipedia - they own pretty much every consumer based tool brand these days.
As far as US based Craftman, they're pretty much gone from the stores other than the WF stuff. Unfortunately Sears also completely dumped their "Craftsman Professional" line of tools last year sometime, which sucks because I liked them a lot. You can still get some of the last bits of stock online from Craftsman.com though at clearance prices. I just got a nice set of Craftsman Pro Torx screwdrivers (because I own a BMW), a set of regular Pro screwdrivers, and some open stock combination and offset box end wrenches - all made in the USA. Once these are gone, though, they're gone.
Last thing I found was that Craftsman is now selling an "Industrial" line of tools now that are all US made and appear to be the same as the old US made "Professional" line they sold in stores. The Industrial line is not sold in Sears stores but can be purchased through Grainger and other distributors.
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