John Carlson writes:

Interesting. According to them, Porter-Cable and Makita (among
others) make tools in America.

On Mon, 05 Jan 2004 13:48:07 -0600, Jon Dough wrote:

Of course the easy way is to check www.buyamerican.com!


Porter-Cable probably still does some here. Makita has long made small tools,
especially cordless, in, IIRC, a SC plant. (Might have been in Georgia--that
was a second year of tool company tours and some of them got scrambled in my
mind.) Toured it once a number of years ago. Impressive facility. At that time,
DeWalt was running an almost as impressive line in Towson, MD. That went
offshore, along with 1100 or more jobs.

Lots of changes in the industry in the past 5 years, with more and more
companies offering tools, with the tools being more and more alike, especially
at the cheap end of the scale, and almost all low end to middle range, and some
high range, tools now being manufactured elsewhere.

The jump in profit margins must be enormous because in many cases, prices are
maintained while production costs are cut by 50% or more.

Charlie Self
"Brevity is the soul of lingerie." Dorothy Parker
http://hometown.aol.com/charliediy/m.../business.html