There was a lot of discussion when Black and Decker bought Porter Cable and Delta. Some of it was negative and some positive. I for one felt the end of two great QUALITY tool lines was near. Little had I imagined that this aquisition would cause continued greef even after I decided to not purchase either brand in the future. Two and a half weeks ago I took an aging miter saw to the now combined B&D, PC and Delta repair service. They still have not even turned a screw nor bolt on my saw. A repair five years earlier took but four working days at the Delta PC facility. The reason for the delay, ” we’ve been swamped with repairs.”
To those of you that felt this combination of companies would make for better quality and more reliable tools, I say phooey!
Edited 3/29/2006 2:38 pm ET by Rusty
Replies
<"...I say phoooy!">
I think you mean "phooey".
;^)
No surprise, with B&D it is always a race to the botttom...
Glaucon
If you don't think too good, then don't think too much...
I agree with your comment and thanks for the spelling corection!
I live in IRELAND and have a DELTA saw that needs a part .Delta have sent six emails telling me B&D in the U.K will handle it .B&D dont have a site for Delta I can find .PC Dewalt and others yes but no Delta. Last I heard from them they have no repair agents in EUR. and they dont know anyone who shipps parts from US . This is my first time to join in so Hi to everyone Ilove browsing. Itry woodwork because my old bones wont allow me to do anything else. My Wife drove me down to the scrap yard yesterday >>not to get rid of me<<Igot some pieces and Imay be able to do something with themto get the saw working again.By the way the saw was made in Taiwan . The more a fish swims the less he sweats.
If you need a website for Delta, go to http://www.deltamachinery.com
"I cut this piece four times and it's still too short."
I believed that phooy was more acurate - as in dog phoo :) LOL1 - measure the board twice, 2 - cut it once, 3 - measure the space where it is supposed to go 4 - get a new board and go back to step 1
>> No surprise, with B&D it is always a race to the botttom...They must be doing something right. I wish I owned more of their stock over the past 40 years. B&D has been pretty good at being in tune with the marketplace.Howie.........
">> No surprise, with B&D it is always a race to the botttom...
They must be doing something right. I wish I owned more of their stock over the past 40 years. B&D has been pretty good at being in tune with the marketplace."
True. But I could say the same thing about Walmart. I just don't want to buy my tools there.Glaucon
If you don't think too good, then don't think too much...
I thought the issue with my jigsaw was caused by the repair center moving. From November to Feburary, no update on Dewalt's automated system and the relocated center had no published number. (Try to get past DeWalt's 800 number to find a person!)
When I finally got in touch with them they still needed another week.
What ticks me off is the jisaw had my name and phone number still attached to the cord and after all that time I swear it runs slower than it should.
On Monday a tool retailer told me they are having more call-backs and repair issues with Delta than ever before, and more than the other brands -- including offshore brands.
hi I'm also a first time writer, but I could say a thing or two about bad service from DeWalt and Sears! I have an old radial arm saw that needed parts and of course you can't get those any more because they discontinued the line and Its just not worth the time to make the doesen's of phone calls or net serches necesary to find them (besides Its a light wieght model that deflects easaly and doesn't hold Its settings!)
Duncan Black and Alonzo Decker had a very reputable tool line in the 50's and early 60's. As they became less involved, new blood, many without knowledge of the B&D legacy, lost sight of the company's early history.
B&D became a second to market company, rarely "inventing" something totally new. They bought the "Work-Mate", they literally stole the mechanism for the Porter-Cable bock sander, got sued, pulled it off the market and finally cut a deal with P-C.
Nolan Archibald took over in the late 80's and his compensation, like many CEO's, is tied to company performance. Archibald made several acquistions in the early 90's at the begining of the recession and needed cash flow. They dusted off the Dewalt brand - a product they literally ran into the ground 15 years earlier and they quietly converted their coveted B&D Industrial Line to DeWalt, reducing manufacturing costs by going to plastic housings, more windings in motors than triple gears, etc.
B&D has been - and in some investors eyes - currently is a great stock investment. And they have done well. Real heavy duty tool users - heavy industry like steel, concrete form construction, pier construction, etc. demand continuous duty tools - you won't find many DeWalts there. And the concern now is B&D will "suck the patents/knowledge" from Delta and Porter-Cable just like they did with Master-Power, DeWalt and others and then toss them to another investor.
I grew up in the shadow of B&D corporate, know many folks there, considered working there at one point and worked with them when I was responsible for manufacturing economic development. On the one hand I want them to succeed but you won't find any of their products in my shop - and I've had many opportunites to acquire them at the "right price."
Unfortunately, many of today's tool users are not as demanding or knowledgable as their predecessors. I'm convinced you could buy a boat load of "no-name" tools, paint them a jazzy color, give them a jazzy name like Mazda and you can sell them like crazy - and their are some folks doing that right now. More and more I buy old iron, something that has been around and already has its imperfections visible.
"Duncan Black and Alonzo Decker had a very reputable tool line in the 50's and early 60's."
ETC, pleased to introduce you to "Big Bertha", one of their finer offerings. ;-)
View Image
She takes a lickin' and just keeps on tickin'
Yup - I still see some of the old B&D "Holeguns" floating around. They made (and others did too) a 1" and a 1 1/4" drills with morse taper chucks - some folks used them to run small lifts to transport tools and equipment to upper floors of a job. They all had triple gear reduction with motors wound at their Towson Maryland plant - later at the Hampstead Maryland plant which at the time was the largest power tool manufacturing facility in the world. All the gears were machined - today many are made using powder metallurgy, a good techinique but still not as good as machining.
ETC, pleased to introduce you to "Big Bertha", one of their finer offerings. ;-)
Hey, I have that bad boy. I picked it up at a garage sale for $5.00. I'm not sure why I got it, I don't need it. I'm not even really sure what its intended purpose is other than causing hernias. About all I've used it for is stirring up buckets of gypsum. I love the sound of it, the slow wind up and wind down, kind of like an old Kirby vacuum. I believe it says Van Doer and in smaller letters B&D. I'm assuming Van Doer was a company swallowed up by B&D.
My father found this one on the side of the road, cordless. No doubt some poor sucker went for a ride on that baby until the cord got so wrapped up it ripped out!
The thing has so much inertia I've drilled three holes while it was coasting down, LOL.
Also, for those not familiar, these things have a suicide switch, one click is on, the next click is off. Great fun when it stuck!
Given your experience with B&D and insights into the manufacturing/marketing mix, which brand of American-made portable tools would you consider superior vs. imports?
I'm not an expert in these affairs, just a keen observer and user. Virtually everyone is having their machines made off shore - from the high end Hilti to all the well known domestic brands like Milwaukee. One brand that still does some domestic manufacturing is Sioux - they are owned by Snap-On and do make some fine air and electric tools.
When I'm in the market for a tool, I look for one that has an established history, e.g. the Porter Cable 505 sander. No it's not exactly the same as the 505 made 30 years ago, but it still is based on the original design that still lives on. I also visit the sites where heavy duty work is going on - pier construction, bridge form work or production cabinet/mill shops. They have to continuously rely on machine up time, so their experiences are valued. And contractor rental yards have a wealth of experience on machines - e.g. the yeards I frequent only have Porter-Cable belt sanders because of the solid history for their machines.
I wish the tool reviews would spend some time on where to get parts, how quickly is the turn around and what is the frequency of repair for a machine. That's the other half of the equation that is so important.
Thanks. Those tool reviews you mention are, as far as I can tell, only from users' points of view. Not really in-depth, down-to-the-engineering level analyses. That applies to the expensive European imports as well. Why should a German 3/8 drill cost several hundred dollars? Better motors? Better gears? Bearings? Grease? The ads all say "best", but I sure as h*ll can't tell why.
I agree - but some of the differences can be subtle like machined vs. powder metallurgy gears. Also, the steel laminations used to make the rotors and stators can range from generic sheet steel to exotic motor steels with alloys that enhance motor properties. Heat generation can kill a motor - that's why good machines are always geared down so that under load the motor is still turning at a reasonable rpm to fan cool the motor.
The B&D Industrial Holegun series could run under load for hours without it getting really hot. Today the gearing (read expensive) is replaced with a beefier motors - more windings/laminations, many time with special motor steels - which is cheaper than gears. But try to run that machine under load for several hours - you would have a hard time holding it. But in the toolmakers defense, few folks run machines that long so why bother?
Many users are so converted to battery machines that the demand for extra heavy duty corded product has diminished. The irony is that if you took the folks who use battery machines continuously and put them in an assembly operation - say automotive - and told them they had to use their battery machines all day, greviances would fly because of potential for repetitive motion problems. As all these folks grow older, it will be interesting to see how many develop motion problems from swinging heavy battery machines all day.
Oh, please, no tool equation should incorporate the age factor!
Sorry - didn't mean to bring up age. But it is a little scary when I see everyone head over heals in love with battery torque drivers and I ask if they every used a heavy duty positive clutch low rpm driver? I have several - all vintage the 70's and can run 3/8" lag screws, bolts etc. with ease - no one makes them in the heavy duty version anymore, just sheetrock drivers which are the opposite - high rpm and double gearing. Anyway, there's a whole generation out there unfamiliar with the product - a little scary!
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