I love the Dubuque Clamps you recommended in an earlier video with Jon Peters! Glad you remembered them! They were the first thing that came to my mind!
My 5: Hillview Wood and Metal 4 inch double square, Calavera Tool works apron, Starrett 12 inch combination square, Matthew Tools center punch and an Estwing hammer!
After watching Jon’s videos I purchased both the Montana Brand Tools Countersink & Vix-Bit sets. After using them I found myself asking “why I thought the brands I had been using for years were the best thing since sliced bread? “When In fact, in my opinion, they were far inferior to the Montana Brand Tools sets. Now I have to check out their drill bit set. My credit card thanks you 😊. Thank you for another great video. Wishing the 3 of you, your family & loved ones a Very Happy & Safe 4th of July holiday!
I wonder if the montana tools brand is different in the UK? I bought a countersink/counterbore pilot bit set after hearing really good things online from folks in the US about them. But mine were terrible. Worse quality than a cheap dewalt set. Unless someone out there is producing counterfeit drill bits 🤷🏻♂️
@@TodaysCraftsmen it was quite a long while ago now, and I've just stuck to using famag, which I have for years and are always excellent. I'm thinking there is a decent chance they were cheap generic bits that were being falsely advertised as Montana maybe. They're not available in the usual stores over here, so I had to buy them online, so who knows how reputable the seller was really 🤷🏻♂️.
favorite American made tools, are my Oliver machines they are all pre 1999 when they were still USA made, Oliver is gone its just an asian company that uses the name now, Clamps are Wetzler, but again they are out of business now, they made the best clamps in the world. Still In business, Northfield, makes fabulous machinery, tannewitz still makes some stuff, Max Sanders, I believe Ritter is still usa made, Powermatic ,made great stuff when they were still here made in TN now they are not the same either. Delta was great stuff before it was sold off, Porter Cable, made amazing stuff before it got bought and ruined. Most of all the best stuff you could buy was USA made, not anymore everyone wants cheap.
@@TodaysCraftsmen I don't have anything north field been thinking about a number 4 table saw but I don't have the room unless I get rid of my powermatic 66, I just bought an amazing Oliver 166 jointer to replace a really nice moak 16" that I have had for 25. years
@@TodaysCraftsmen hoping to find some time to do a shop tour in the near future, have a lot of stuff no one on you tube has seen before, have too much client work to do to stop and make videos, possibly later in the summer.
I’d love to see that. And yeah I hear ya. It’s a struggle many weeks for me to carve out the two hours or so it takes Jon and I to shoot our weekly video. But it’s sweat equity!
As much as I would like to see tool manufacturing come back to the US, we would have to have some people willing to work and pass laws that make it profitable enough to do so. Our work pool is weak for the most part.
A good starting point would be to let pay get to a level that is attractive for folks. It would push prices up higher than imports but I dont know about you, I am fed up with cheap Chinese crap that breaks and then cannot be repaired or supported. I swear I pay more by buying stuff and throwing it away and replacing it. I appreciate this video and I wish we could slowly pivot back to the quality that comes from the US.
@@MovieNutter We've all played a role in the "off-shoring" of manufacturing from North America to Asia. We all shop at Walmart because their prices are the cheapest - even though most everything in the store is made in China or some other country where labour costs are ridiculously low. We all know this, but we shop there anyways because we're all trying to stretch our hard-earned dollars further. Ultimately, I blame the companies. They could move their manufacturing back to North America and still be profitable - just not as profitable as they are now. In the boardrooms of America, maximizing profit for shareholders is the only thing that matters, regardless of the greater consequences.
