To the original poster, eBay is your friend. I recently scored a complete new set of SK flare nut wrenches for less than $45 including delivery, almost 1/3 the usual price, it will be replacing my Craftsman. Sellers sometimes show up with weird overstocks, sometimes from closed stores or government auctions, and blow out stuff cheap. Like the guy with qty 6 of SK 29mm wrenches and was blowing them out for $13 each. I offered $10 and got one. Also check out Cripe Distributing. They have a lot of Allen USA (Danaher/Apex/Allen) High Polish stuff for cheap, and Armstrong for kind of cheap. Avoid the "G" suffix Allen Made-in-China stuff.
Originally Posted By: Warstud
Here are the USA made Craftsman sets. It's there professional line.
http://www.sears.com/search=craftsman professional metric wrench set
Old Craftsman Professional wrenches were US made high polish, many by SK. New CMan Pro is from China. Lately some Craftsman Industrial has been showing up on Sears that is USA.
Sometimes the sears.com website lists Craftsman Industrial as Craftsman Professional, but the picture and product is Industrial, chalk that up to the amount of cocaine taken by the data entry and database people at Sears.com. I guess they have to do something to cope with their CEO. If the picture says Craftsman Industrial and the description says Made in USA, you've found the right stuff.
Originally Posted By: Merkava_4
Originally Posted By: Jschreffler81
I may just have to cough up the money and go for the sk set. Those in the picture look nice.
Please allow me to save you from those behemoths. The beams are square with sharp corners and for some reason - SK feels the need to amass a huge amount of steel around the box area. You can thank me later.
Are you talking about the old, old SK raised panel wrenches? Or the early SuperKrome's that were transitional to the latest high polish? I have all 3 generations and yes the first and second gen are square beamed. The old raised panels were indeed massive. I have a few my Grandfather ground down into custom obstruction wrenches. They got the job done at are still useful. Back then SK was just another mid-level brand.
My modern (15 years old to yesterday) SK wrenches are not square beamed, just rounded, and not knife-edged like my GearWrench ratcheting wrenches (which I plan to get rid of).
Originally Posted By: Kruse
It's also funny how a lot of guys don't have any specialty tools (either purchased or self-engineered) sitting in the tool box next to the shiny, purchased sets.
Not my pic, but... I've had my standard pattern Metric SK 12-point Combination wrenches for almost 15 years now, and they still look new. They only look a little worn when put next to my week-old Long Pattern 6-pt SK set. I'm not a pro but these wrenches have gotten a workout over the years. Also, I don't abuse my tools.
My wrenches have their own drawer, as do my specialty tools. With the proper tool holder (usually Ernst Grippers) I can cram a LOT of wrenches in one shallow drawer. It really speeds up finding them and making sure everything is still there when cleaning up. I can also grab-n-go easily, and oh yeah, lately SK wrenches come in their own special Green color Ernst Grippers.
Having a brand other than Craftsman really helps when sorting out who-has-what at the end of a driveway rescue job. Let the other 3 Craftsman owners argue while I leave with my SK's.