LRod wrote:

On Thu, 27 Jul 2006 03:16:30 GMT, zap wrote:

Somewhere in there was the Companion name. I think that was basically
what you are calling Sears, and then when they dropped the use of
Dunlap, they started calling them Companion.

Actually, I disagree that Craftsman was ever "absolute top of the
line." My 1960 era table saw was not markedly different than the last
one made by Emerson in the '90s. They reduced the price by going to
stamped steel instead of cast iron for the extension wings, plastic
instead of metal (albeit cheap metal) for handles, flat bar instead of
geared adjustment for the rip fence (which was never that good in any
iteration).

If you don't believe me, go find a '60s era contractor saw by Sears
and compare it to a comparable year contractor saw by Delta (or then
Rockwell). Worlds apart.

I think Sears got a reputation for quality based on their money back
guarantee on their wrenches. In actuality, it wasn't so much that the
wrenches were that great. Wrenches are hard to break. How many
thousands of wrenches out of billions of wrenches sold do you think
they need to start worrying about (that's like one in a million--not
much effect on the bottom line)? I figured that out as a marketing
gimmick when Ace put the same guarantee on their "Master Mechanic"
wrenches.

Their wrenches are OK, they were never "top of the line" compared to Snap-On
or Mac Tools but they were good, workmanlike tools--I did manage to break
one once, a socket, got an impact socket which is what I should have been
using in the first place on that job and never had another problem.

I've had so many screaming disappointments with Sears (power) tools
from the late '60s and early '70s that when I finally discovered the
difference after buying a Bosch jigsaw or a Porter-Cable router, I
vowed never again to buy a Sears power tool. And I never will.

The "Craftsman Professional" tools are not too bad. Next time you're in a
Sears take a look at their jigsaws and you'll find that the "Craftsman
Professional" jigsaw _is_ a Bosch. Now, I've had people claim that it has
been "cheapened" somehow other than by being painted black and having a
Sears label stuck on it, but I've never seen an actual side by side
comparison of parts that confirms this and suspect that it would cost more
for Sears to have Bosch redesign the tool than to simply buy what they were
selling with the different color and different label. The only reason to
buy it in preference to a Bosch-labelled Bosch would be to get the Sears
parts list--if Sears continues to function as they have in the past they'll
have parts inventory for that saw until the Second Coming.

snip

--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)