Porter Cable makes Good Drills!

[olgentdc]

Today I plugged in a drill and it worked like New ... It had been laying on the back of My Jeep for at least 12 yrs. forgotten , under , Tires , cans buckets and scrap metal ,,.. in all the weather this Louisville area can dish Out! I had wondered What ever happened to that drill .. And Now It is Back on the shelf.

 

[DR. EVIL]

I worked for a different company also owned by the same parent company that owned Porter-Cable Cable. We got tool sales 4-5 times a year, great discounts, so I have LOTS & LOTS of Porter-Cable tools. They may not be as good as Milwaukee but I bought lots of stuff at about 1/3 to 1/2 the price of Milwaukee. I've never had one fail. All 3 of my air compressors are Porter-Cable, a 80 gallon 2-stage 7-1/2 hp, it's been great, I've done lots of sand blasting with it. And have a Porter-Cable Cable Contractor's compressor, two tanks, oiless compressor, so it's noisey, but it can run 2-3 BIG nail guns like when shingling, and a smaller 2-1/2 gal pancake compressor, it's so light I can pick it up and carry it around the car or truck to sniff up the tires. It has a permanent home in the garage along with a 50 ft extension cord and 20 ft airhose.
I discovered the Porter-Cable drills were the same as a Craftsman, and even with my employee discount I could buy new Craftsman cordless tool kits cheaper on Black Friday than the Porter-Cables, but the oddball stuff was where the savings were. 6 Delta bench grinder for $22. A SHEET METAL KNIBBLER for $8, chews away about a Quarter inch slot in thin sheet steel about as fast as you can push it. Noisey & messy but it's the right tool for many jobs. Since I don't have access to those sales, I have bought a few Milwaukee tools like a 4-1/2 angle grinder, think it's 10-12 amps, too much power to run with only one hand, a 7-1/2 circular saw, 14 Amp. Much better saw than the all plastic Black & Decker saws I bought 30 years ago, but Boy have they been used & abused and still run. I have His & Her belt sanders, a Craftsman I got for Christmas years ago, and a Porter-Cable I got 15 or so years ago when we sanded and restrained our deck.
Been a HUGE FAN of The Right Tool for the job for 20-30 years. Spent a lot of money on tools I don't use real often, my NEW TOOLS are always safer than the way I was doing things before. Like my 14 inch EVOLUTION RAGE 2 metal cutting saw. About like a miter saw except cuts steel & aluminum. Makes PERFECT WELD READY angles, I don't miss my junky old Delta 4x6 bandsaw one tiny bit, but I do wear a full face safety mask and safety glasses, and something to keep hot razor sharp steel slivers of steel out of my ears.

 

[Jim in LA]

My Dad was given a 1/2 in. Western Auto drill for Christmas in 1970, one of those heavy polished bare metal ones and I needed to use it a few weeks ago and it had been laying in the open bottom of his roll around tool chest for forty plus years. I got it out and cleaned all the crud off it and wiped it down good with MARVEL MYSTERY OIL, yes it makes an excellent metal cleaner/polish. Anyway the chuck was the only think that needed freed up ad amazingly it workrd flawlessly after four decades of non use.

 

[WI Dan]

-olgentdc
Yes, the old stuff is good. I don't trust the new stuff. Brand recognition and marketing without core product strength.