steve w question

Not that style. Looks like the same type of die the bar&clamp units use. I used the bar&clamp for a few years, if you prep everything perfect they work, you still get a bad flair once in a while though.

ok, thank you. i'll see if i can flag down one of the bay area's few remaining mr snappies and take a look up close.

i saw you had good experience with mastercool, and much as i love to collect tools, i don't do enough line work here in rust-free kalifornistan to justify $300+ for something i'll use maybe once a decade. maybe if i put an integra master cylinder on a civic, but even then, there's only one or two flares to do.

Good luck on the truck chase... They seem to be getting hard to find around here.

Take a couple pieces of tubing with you and try it out on the truck.

i'm not happy with snap-on's current "screw the franchisee" and their "make in china, sell at made in usa prices" policies and generally won't buy their stuff any more. i was only considering this as one of the few "no need to buy a bunch of other stuff you'll never use" as is the case with the larger kits.

that was the plan!

thanks steve.

just a note that: that catalog link indicates it's a "Blue Point" tool. Every Blue Point tool I have researched over the years is made by someone else and sold by Snap-On, So your "made in China" comment is likely spot-on for this tool. the /real/ Snap-On hand tools they sell are still USA made, IME. GW

Yeah, a lot of the ones around here have been selling out and shutting down because they hold a lot of paper that the company want to argue about.

My understanding is that they are not, and haven't been in years, although it might be a mix.

not all are made in usa these days it seems. my fr80 ratchet is conspicuously missing the essential "made in usa" i want to see for the price tag it carries. when i looked into this online, someone in one of the tool forums had re-posted what they said was an email from snap-on saying that their new policy was to not label so they could "focus on their brand, not country of origin". whatever that is supposed to mean.

the way i see it, if it has "made in usa" written on it, then it is and i'll buy it at a made in usa price. if it doesn't, then i'll buy it at a made in taiwan price or not at all. simple.

snap-on have totally lost the plot. their business was built by franchisees getting out there and beating the bushes. sure, they can get fat today if they shoot and eat their beater. but once he's gone, there's no more beaters and no more game coming out of the bushes. then they're screwed.

the same with customers supporting a "made in usa" pricing structure. once it's no longer made in usa, there's no reason to pay the premium - just buy taiwanese no-name for a fraction of the price. and these days, get the same quality.

another fine american business hollowed out by mba retards.

Originally Blue Point was an independent company that Snap-On bought and altered to carry the tools that they didn't already make in house. Then it became the "outsourced" tool line. IE: Snap-On would go to a company and buy tools that they didn't have already in the line. Then they would tell them to alter a few things and stamp it Blue Point instead of Snap-On. They were still quality tools but not made under the Snap-On roof of companies. Then the trend shifted as more specialty tools came out and more electronics became involved. Snap-On started badging tools and importing various items from other countries as well as buying various tool companies in the other countries.

These days the tools could be from just about anywhere. My main reason for buying Snap-On was simple, The truck came to me and any broken tools were swapped out without any problems. Price really didn't enter into it as long as the tool actually did the job and felt good when using it for many hours a week. I have jumped ship a few times when another company had similar tools that felt better to use.

some of the writing is too small for me to even read anymore. But given your info, I am glad all my Snap-On stuff is at least five or ten years old

On another note, I just got the "big azz" Channel Lock brand pliers, and they *are* made in the USA. GW

yup, one of the few that still are, like vaughan hammers. vise-grip defected to china years ago, but now that other cultural icon, nicholson files, have defected too. and they have the unbelievable chutzpah to still charge a made-in-usa $20 for a set of rat-tailed chinese files that from all the other chinese brands cost maybe $5-$6. are they stooopid? or do they just think we are?

thanks for the tip on hammers. I just had a 50+ year old rawhide mallet eaten by a rat(!), so I'm in the market. As for Vise-Grip and files I think mine are all from the 80's or b4 so I lucked out there. cheers, GW