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> I've turned a few wrenches as a life-long DIY mechanic, a former aircraft mechanic, and a mechanical engineer. I use the Hazard Fraught method of tool purchases: I will buy a tool from Harbor Freight once. If it fulfills my needs great. Job done and it goes into the toolbox. If I use it so hard it gives up the ghost, then it gets chucked into the fuckit-bucket and I go buy it at higher quality. Now you either have a tool that might be unreliable and can cause you trouble for the next job. Or, you spent money that you didn't have to spend by buying the lower grade tool when you needed to buy something better anyway. > To be honest, Harbor Freight and other store brands (Husky, Kobalt, etc) have always been reliable enough. As a home-gamer, I certainly couldn't see being able to have a toolbox full of Snap-On, especially before completing my engineering degree. Here you have a solid point. I am thankful that I am able to afford good tools. But if someone in unable to justify, I would say either work to be able to justify it, rent, or buy the best you can afford if you need the tool right now. > But, to the point about rounding off a nut, something like that is rarely a function of tool quality and more about technique. Maybe you are right. But here is an exaggerated example. You have a socket that has more clearance than ideal. You loosen one nut, and that was okay, you loosen the second one, that was a little tighter and that whole setup flexed a bit, but turned out okay. The third one is where things slip. Now, you have a problem. At least that is more or less how I land into trouble. |
The "unknowns" point is valid, but the advice to buy something cheap to start with still comes from a good place.
Even from a cost perspective, I've snapped a few wrenches and upgraded my box saw (,and will splurge on a solder iron the next time I do anything serious), but the money wasted in those mis-purchases is vastly less than the money I would have spent on getting the "right" tools at the outset.
You also have the problem of unknown unknowns. Plenty of people are willing to sell you a $25 tool for $250, and we all know how reviews work, so the presence of good reviews and a high price tag isn't sufficient to guarantee quality. Even going with a "good" brand doesn't suffice if the brand is willing to increase profits on a few duds here and there (or, more charitably, just doesn't always hit them out of the park) or goes the way of Lenovo after an acquisition. Buying a good tool is often a nontrivial effort, and (when directing that advice to your average homeowner rather than a professional with that particular tool) the experience you have with the bad tool gives you a starting point for figuring out which aspects you do or don't care about.
For a few small examples, I own the cheapest immersion blender, 16oz claw hammer, precision screwdriver set, ... that I could get my grubby little hands on. I'd make those purchases again in a heartbeat.
For a counter-example, I did the same thing with a diamond stone. It turns out I don't care about the surface area or most characteristics (and now I know), but I care quite a lot about the depth and longevity. I'll save more money getting a longer-lasting stone that's a size I need, despite having "wasted" money on the cheaper stone, since I won't be inadvertently getting something bigger than I need or want. Since those things last ages I'm not sure the point really holds, but it also lasted for years and was purchased at a time when money was tighter, and spending more money then would have been much more expensive than spending it now.
For an actual counter-example, now I know that any wrench where I'm applying more than a few hundred foot-pounds of torque absolutely needs to be forged, and I'm willing to splurge to avoid low-quality steel. The cheaper wrenches were properly wasted money. Compared to all the time and money I've saved only purchasing nice tools when something failed though, I still think it was a good strategy.