Had some luck today.
I needed a circular Saw to speed this shed building up a bit.,But of course I point blankly refuse to buy Chinese tools and all power tools these days are made in China..
So what I was after was an old Makita Made in JAPAN or an old Skil made in the USA . Now there are a lot guys like me who will only buy tools made in Japan,USA or Germany so I had a look on eBay and a 185 mm saw second hand was about $160 and a 230 mm about $250.
Both made in Japan.
So I put an Ad on FB wanted to buy and a few hours later I get a message from a local that has some , $20 for the Makita 185 mm and $ 25 for the 235 mm.
Both made in JAPAN. Old school quality tool.
So I'm a happy fella today and I have 2 very good condition Japanese Makita Saws .


pete

I have a Makita 240V Blower which I have had for many decades. It has one of those throttle switches: Which died. Interesting!

So being so old: Next move its probably going to be replaced? However, for some reason I sent the search engine on a quest using its model number. This was greeted by it coming up as still being made.. fascinating. This meant that the parts list was still likely to be valid: Well it was & the only thing that changed was the part number for the switch (O.K.. read between the lines).

Anyway local motor rewinder is a repair agent for Makita. So new switch & a new motor for the drill press, back in action.

Marc

Yep, I have some Makita stuff 20 years old and I can and do still buy the parts.
I only have the Japanese Makita stuff Though.
I don't go near the new Chinese stuff.


Pete

I still have my Skil 7 inch circular saw from the 1970s. My mains powered drill is a Black & Decker from back then, too. I also have a B&D planer from that period.

I've bought a few Aldi power tools and, though made in China, they appear to be better constructed than say Ozito at Bunnings.

If I were a tradie, and dependent on reliable tools, I'd only buy the premium brand tools like Milwaukee, DeWalt, Bosch, but my usage isn't that critical.

Milwaukee, DeWalt, Bosch there mostly made in China now..
But your Skil saw is high quality! Is it USA or an old local Oz one????

I have a Rupes sander that is great and I've had it for years, it's a palm sander but it cost over 600 ! Now Rupes is no good and is made all over the place.

your Skil saw is high quality! Is it USA or an old local Oz one????

Oz, I guess. Would need to check it.

The thing about China is that they can make anything to a price. If you want low price then there will be hundreds of factories willing to make it for you and they will cut their own throats to win the contract.

If you have a premium product, with a designated quality standard and a price at the factory gate to match, then there are fewer factories capable of bidding for the work, and they step up to the quality mark, or lose the business.

As I've said here before, when I was a kid "Made in Japan" meant it was cheap junk (akin to Made in China today -- but spanning far fewer products back then). Younger people find that hard to believe, but the history of how Japan learned about QC is all there to be read. China can and will do the same.

Meanwhile, as long as people keep buying cheap throwaway stuff, China will keep on supplying it.

I only have Dewalt power tools these days. They are made in a mix of places. Great Britain, China, Taiwan and Mexico, though strangely none are from the US, where the company is based. Despite China being on the nose at the moment, Dewalt tools are up there on the top shelf and have the ballsiest motors which are ideal for trade use. Dewalt was once known as Black & Decker Industrial (not to be confused with standard Black & Decker handyman-grade stuff). I'm not sure why they changed the name.

Old Skil-era tools would probably still be good to go, though I'd be using them with an RCD. There is a risk of shock, just as there is with old radios.

If Skil is black it will be made in the USA.
Most orange ones were built here.
Both are excellent !
I don't buy Chinese stuff for a long list of reasons.
Quality is very important to me , plus I don't personally want to send my money to China so I'm prepared to spend more. But I use my tools constantly.

When I worked as a mechanic they gave me a Japanese drill press from a WW2 submarine as gift. I had it for years and I guess originally it must of Run off the Lathe.
Unfortunately I lost it in one of my many house moves. The press was huge and took 3 of us to put it in a trailer.

Pete

Its amazing at times to see what is out there & still going.

Shed ceiling fan I can't find a date but its an Italian Marrelli "Breezo" & made for a carbon pile regulator. I suspect 30's.

Transit level: L.S. Starrett USA circa 1914 (and has been calibration checked)

One living area clock: 1906

Tractor; 1951 Last overhaul 2020. Pistons & bottom end original.

Electric power tools date into the 80's. Hand saws etc. some into the 1920's Die-stock & some dies 1919.

Valve tester VCT 1938.

I don't really have anything that old Marc.
All my furniture and appliances are from the 1950s or early 60s.
My tools are not old, The oldest ones I've got would be from the 80s when I first started working, but those would be hand tools , spanners etc, my power tools would start from the 90s. My compressor I bought in 2006 and is Australian made. But all my spray Guns are new. Guns you tend to Replace and There all Devilbiss ! which are very high end , Made in Europe and the UK . Not cheap , but there the best you can buy. Which you need for metallics and 2 Pak , not so much if you only do lacquer.

Pete

Pulford and Air Pilot are good compressors.

I have several Makita power tools.
A drop saw,chainsaw and a blower vac.
They have a quality feel about them and work very well particularly the drop saw which has built a large veranda and a carport so far and has two more veranda's to build (at my kid's respective houses. No rest for me)
It's definitely paid for itself.
I must admit when I bought them I didn't look where they were made.
I simply looked at the specs and chose based on that.
These days I would probably be more choosy regarding place of manufacture.
The problem with respectable brands made in China is that after a period of time a dead copy of the tool appears with a Chinese brand at a fraction of the cost.
It will be nowhere near as durable but looks the part so people who don't know any better buy them.

If tensions in the South China Sea heat up too much, I wouldn't be surprised if companies start to pull their factories out of China and have the job done in South Korea or India, where labour is almost just as cheap but quality would probably improve where quality now suffers. Even Taiwanese factories produce goods with better build quality these days. Though that said, China does make some good quality stuff, particularly when their factories are supervised by Western engineers and the demand to make good stuff matters more.

The bottom line is that if China keeps scaling back on our exports, those exports will eventually go to other nations as they step up to the plate. A bit of short term pain will result in long term gain as we strike deals with customers that are ultimately better to get along with.

as we strike deals with customers that are ultimately better to get along with.

The need to not have all your eggs in one basket is always highlighted by nationalistic petulance like we are seeing from China. In supply chain management theory there's a famous case of an American company, whose name I can't immediately recall, which started to get large orders from McDonalds to supply paper cups. The orders grew so large that they ended up concentrating all their efforts meeting the McDonalds demand and their existing customer base fell by the wayside. Eventually McDonalds changed its requirement and went elsewhere leaving this company stranded.

Big companies like McDonalds are funny like that. McDonalds have a full specification for things as insignificant as drinking straws. Each straw has to be a certain colour, length and width and they are pretty strict on it.