What are the shittiest tools you have ever used?
Other than the shit just stamped 'China' or 'Taiwan' the worst shit I've used is probably Husky. Stripped out several of their 1/2" ratchets, no hassle getting a replacement tho
>>2940847Husky pliers. Mine all corroded within a year or two of owning I've bent couple needle noses just pulling cotter pins.Honorable mention goes to HF's 12 ton press: mine disassembled itself violently when pressing some control arm bushings (although it went back together fine).
>>2940847Aldi lawn mower
My Harbor Freight/Atlas electric lawnmower works great while it has a charge, my Atlas leaf blower is super convenient, but my Atlas weed whacker is unbalanced, extremely difficult to reload, and the auto feed never works. I hate that thing.
>>2940847Black&Decker angle grinder. Got it as a gift from my grandma when I was a kid, who got it on discount at the hardware store. Had it lying around for a few years, since I was using my rpm-controlled fein (yep, had one as a kid - saved up for a year, but it was worth it) for everything.Fast forward a couple years, and I'm cleaning my first car's underfloor of rust. Was cleaning the PVC coating with a wirebrush, then the rust with a csd, so I figured I could just use two grinders so I wouldn't have to shift discs all he time. Put the wirewheel on the B&D.Lasted a whole 20 min, then it started shaking like crazy. Disassembled it, and found the bearing was worn. Said bearing is pressed into a cast aluminum piece with no way to remove it, you need to change the entire head to fix it. Contacted B&D, they wanted ~120€ for that piece, while getting the same grinder new would've been 140€.For comparison, on the Fein (where I checked just in case), the bearing is a standard ball bearing, held in place by two screws, with spares costing 15€. Buy cheap, buy twice, I guess.
>>2940862Lol, didn't realize this was a thing. Love aldis though. >>2940892Kinda similar situation for me. I had bought my first house and my grandma was coming to visit so I wanted to get the house to look as good as possible, but didn't have a weed eater. I was cash poor die to the house, but had some Amazon gift cards. I went online and the only weed eater that would've came in time was a black and decker. That thing fucking sucked. It was so weak, it basically just slapped the grass around. The real kicker though? My grandma canceled on me that day cause she wasn't feeling well(she's over 90 years old), so I would've been fine with getting whatever other weedeater that was available. Fuck black and decker.
Yo dawg, I heard you was looking for some of them single use tools.
>>2940847>craftsman breaks>get new craftsman>millennials don't understand why then craftsman are designed to break (again)
>>2940847Wera screwdrivers
Off-brand Mercedes (telescoping) spring compressor. I don't have high speed footage, but I swear the "cast" discs and/or the central pinion deformed enough to let go at full compression. Fortunately I wasn't in the way and the car to the side wasn't even damaged, but I'm never removing Mercedes springs again.
>>2941049It shouldn't take that much to get the springs off when the car is in the air.
>>2941075Lol thats exactly what I thought before I almost took out a limb
>>2940847The free Allen keys that come with ikea funiture Walmart brand called workman’s choice
>>2941056Lol. This faggot is still pissed that he can't fix anything himself.
>>2940959Wera is a junk peddler who does a lot of online shilling when people call them out. Saw it on tool forums.
Grizzly 1/4" drive ratchet. Out of the box it didn't work, it would just ratchet in both directions. Left it out in the rain and the rust took up the loose tolerances and made it work.
>>2940959Seconding this. I twisted the shaft clean out of the handle on their $60 multibit screwdriver and I didn't even have a wrench on it.
Bought a $20 corded impact wrench thinking I could rotate my car tires faster. RATATATATATATAT shit this one is really stuck TATATATAT did that for like 10 minutes before grabbing the breaker bar and it loosened right up like nothing. Put it away, haven't thought about it since until now.
>>2940847i bought an Ozito electric lawnmower for my brothers one square meter of lawn, the fucking thing stalls on 3cm of grass.like, i get that tool batteries are 18v and fuck all amps, but holy shit.my mains voltage weed whacker does some good work, even with a MUCH smaller motor, so i'm guessing its just the battery letting it down, but holy shit, i was hoping it would at least do better than the literal meme push mower i got him for his last birthday.
>>2941833Yet torque channel just tested them and only got beaten by pb swiss.
>>2940919My dad loves this store. Needless to say, his garage is packed full of dogshit half-broken tools with zero resale value.
>>2942067>My dad loves this store. Needless to say, his garage is packed full of dogshit half-broken tools with zero resale value.I'm assuming Princess Auto is just like Harbor Freight? I only have experience with HF, but you can get some decent deals on quality stuff there. Some of the stuff they sell is absolute dogshit. You have to use your common sense when looking at and purchasing tools from there. I view a lot of their stuff as a kit that I will have to modify to get how I want it to be, but will get me 90% of the way to a finished product.
I don't think I've ever successfully used this tool.
>>2942044Maybe they just have shitty quality control
>>2942077>hes not old enough to remember hand crank windows
>>2942077>>2942081That is not a standard pair of vise grips. Looks like a ductwork crimping tool for shrinking one end of the duct to go inside another...
>>2940919>>2942076PA is a bit better than HF but only a bit, and not as cheap even accounting for canadian prices. You don't go there for quality stuff but most of it is also mostly not "break in one day of normal use" like some of the worst shit you find at HF, they're a little more selective with what they stock, but it's still only like, the better end of cheap stuff HF sells rather than actual quality tools. I think they share a lot of suppliers even, just brand shit differently after it comes out of the chinese factory. PA being a bit more expensive means it does a worse job competing with mid tier name brand shit on sale at big box stores though, compared to HF, but I hear HF has been cutting sales and raising prices and shit over the last couple years so maybe it's not as different these days.
>>2940847i don't consider them shit, but most ppl here would, so here's my hoarded total tools collection for your viewing pleasure.
>>2942233Do you eventually plan on using them, or are you strictly a collector?
>>2942269I have been using them for years. yesterday I installed pic rel. I just like maintaining tools. I think it's because of inflation now that I can't afford photo equipment, or PC parts, that I've started hoarding home tools as a cheaper alternative that still appeals to the lizard part of my brain
>>2942077i use these for everything (curved jaw), from removing chair gas cylinder to pulling out gray hairs. they're fun to fiddle with.
>>2943544>i use these for everything (curved jaw), from removing chair gas cylinder to pulling out gray hairs.Based.
>>2943548oh man not the shiny ones. flaunt your collection anon.
one time i used a sharp rock as a screwdriver, that was pretty bad
>>2943687I use my Esee little guys as screwdrivers and pry bars quite often and they’re the best damn pry bar knives I have ever owned.My boss needed a flathead screwdriver to pry some shit recently, handed him the Esee and he was like “No I need to pry! I don’t want to break your knife!” And I’m like “heckin try to break it brother!”. Only knives I have ever carried for more than a few months without snapping the tip prying.Best tool to use for it’s non-intended purpose!
The worst tool I've ever used was this fucking thing here, it's more nerve racking and dangerous than a jeep jack. There's praying it doesn't slide off the post to being scared of a slight mistake bumping the wire while trying to tie it down and it sliding off the clamp somehow is a nightmare. Even taking it off once you tie it down doesn't feel safe, never again and no more wire fence installs.>>2942077As the name implies, it is a "vice" "grip". The tool is basically an adjustable quick clamp to hold and clamp things together, not to rotate them like a wrench nor pry the staple/nail or turn the stripped phillips head into a hex bolt.
>>2944138I fucking love my goldenrod fence stretchers...
All my tools work great i dont like shitty fine screwdrivers for electronics. Its gotta be wiha.. shitty screw drivers and stripped screws can really piss me off but im good at avoiding it.
Shitty digital calipers are another annoying tool. All i own are shitty calipers becuase I dont want to buy a good one.
>>2941049You fucked that up and did it wrong.. . What did you use your impact on it like a dumbass?
>>2940847>buy chineseum measuring tape>open package>rubber ass smell overwhelms me>hands become greasy just touching the rubber >peel off the rubber but the smell is stuck to the plasticFor $2 what can I expect.
-can openers-battery weed wacker-old bandsaws-whirlpool washing machines-the oil filter wrench with chain and the chevy metal housing wrapping 75% around the oil filter-the straw for expanding foam after one use-spanner and blade wrenches I can only find when I don't need them-chicago electric trim router, angle grinder, everything tbqh
>>2940847One of those vibrator things. The 6 gorillion in 1 oscillating tools. Supposed to be great at everything, only good at making cuts without drilling a hole first (if you don't have space for a circular saw) yet you'll see dozens of attachments for them, the only one of which works (and only for shallow cuts) is the saw.
>>2944297>only one of which works (and only for shallow cuts) is the sawstill does it better than anything else
>>2944297buy better blades
>>2944297>>2944325>3 pack of blades>$40
>>2944297Well yeah it you are expecting it to replace every tool in your arsenal you are going to be sorely disappointed. They are excellent for plunge cuts as you stated and cutting up flush against other obstacles and into corners. For those few tasks alone they are worth having.
>>2940847I bought a very cheap spare welding helmet. It had a nice glass on it, but the helmet's mechanism for tilting was bad out of the factory, you couldn't possibly set it to a normal angle. After drilling extra adjustment holes, I could set it to a normal angle, but it would either constantly flop down, or never flop down. I threw it out after 5 minutes of use, it was unsalvageable.
>>2940847Borrow a tool from a Hispanic person, angle grinder with a cracked housing that flexes as you use it is the best condition shit they’ll own 10mm socket so worn that it just looks round
>>2940847silverline.all their tools are made of chinese butter.
>>2940959>>2941833>>2941991actually flabbergasted, i rate wera very highly, they make a few different grades of quality but their real good quality stuff is excellent.
>>2942077back when i was a kid my dad had no tools, but we had like 10 pairs of these for some reason and i'd pretty much build a whole bike with them. ol reliable
Cheap consumables are the worst. Recently, it wasn’t this brand but maybe they’re from the same shitty Chinese factory, work decided to save some money on wire wheels. I got hours out of the last DeWalt wire wheel, and then stuck the generic ass one on there and within 15min of grinding off paint, every single wire was stuck in my gloves and pants.On the parts/tools reorder list: “4.5in wire wheels for angle grinder. Name brand please. They are 5x the cost but last 10x as long and are not grenades”Cheap sawblades are fucking terrible every time too. Even if you get real carbide teeth on a circ saw blade, it’s real fun when they’re not brazed properly and fly off at thousands of RPM.And drill bits, save yourself the trouble and stock up on DeWalt like 15pc sets when they’re on sale for $10 at Lowes and Home Depot.
>>2942077because that is for clamping (pinching) hoses
Craftsman 3/8 ratchet.I bent the teeth on it because I put too much force on it breaking a bolt loose on my old motorcycle.>Use a breaker bar dumbassThere's no reason a tool should break, when I'm using it one handed with no cheater bar on the end of it.
>>2944891That’s kind of surprising. Quick release ratchets almost always snap at the square before you fuck the internals.I snapped the square on a DeWalt 3/8” ratchet a couple weeks ago, but that may or may not have had a cheater on it after my size 13 boot was on it…
>>2944891The quality has gone that bad ?i've used the same harbor freight 3/8 ratchet I bought for 9.88$ equally as a hammer and a ratchet since I got it in 2016. what the hell kinda shit are you guys doing to tools?Oh and my choice is O'Reilly's No name brand brake flaring tool, that inverted flare die is made out of sliver colored cheese, no matter what size, had to return at least 3 kits to fix one rusty car.
harbor freight knockoff bosch rotary hammer/chipping gunabsolute garbageused it for the day i needed it, doing sidewalk, returned it the next day. it barely survived
It's not the shittiest ever but I've found the quality control on milwaukee portable bandsaw blades to be terrible. Some of them last forever, some of them immediately strip teeth off. I had one that snapped on me and I then proceeded to break it into little pieces with minimal effort. The thing was about as brittle as dried pasta. I tried this with the next blade from the same box after it broke and it was much more difficult to break. I like the portable bandsaw, but finding a blade that isn't a dud has proven very difficult.
>>2944297These things are great for remodeling and light duty demolition work. I don't use mine very often, but every once in a while I have to use it to cut out trim or drywall and it makes short work of things that would otherwise have been a pain to do. It's by far the easiest way to cut something flush to another surface. I think these are very good tools when thy're used in that way, they've just been oversold as a solution to other things for which there is a much better tool.
>>2940847Rectal thermometer
>>2945389>Rectal thermometerShoulder length palpation gloves.
