Actually, I’m about ready to change my answer.

Milwaukee tapes have gotten better over the years, and I found myself liking all aspects. The standout was useful, the cases and blades durable, and I’ve been liking the more recent compact tapes. The hooks were large enough without being too large and clunky.

I found that, over time, I used Milwaukee more and more and other brands less and less.

Now, I’ve been really like the new Dewalt Tough Series, which have become my go-to.

It’s all a matter of “what would I instantly buy?” Milwaukee remains an easy buy for me, but I’m not sure they’re my unquestionable primary choice.

I bought a 25ft magnetic tape measure thinking it would be a great step up from whatever generic tape measure I had at the time and I cannot express how truly disappointed I was. Like a kid finally getting to go to this big candy store only to be given some brussel sprouts.

I tried and tried to like it.. but at the end of the day I cannot escape the hatred and animosity I have for that red tape measure.. the “stand out”, or lack thereof rather, is enough to make my blood boil.

Lindstrom precision pliers are indeed outstanding. You get what you pay for.

Bahco files are excellent, including their oberg cut. Excellent general purpose and sharpening files.

If you haven’t already, check out the Shinto rasps, made in Japan. Amazing performance, and quite a novel approach to an old tool. More affordable than a hand stitched rasp (although they are on my fantasy list), and far better than a machine stitched rasp. The double sided coarse / medium rasp is a bench staple.

Great list.
Flashlights: you owe it to yourself to try an HDS rotary. Might just be the best light ever made. I’ve been using for years. Bombproof, best user interface I have ever seen. Made in Tucson AZ. Low light is the most useful, going down to a fraction of a lumen. Bright when you need it. Great CRI on request. Customizable.
Oscillating tool: Fein. 12v multi talent & drill combo is so useful. Light, for cutting and fastening. Comes as a set. Portable DIY problem solver combo.
Rotary hammers: Hilti
Pry bar: Tove
Fixed blade: Survive knives/ Fallkniven
Folder: Spyderco
Shop Vac: Nilfisk

Just like I did 4-5 years ago, I would buy cordless tools according to my confidence in the battery platform. That time it was DeWalt, and though I get Makita and Milwaukee envy from time to time, It may be DeWalt again because they don’t threaten to obsolete their 20v and flex batteries. Yet, Makita has been very stable, and I love their tools, so…??

I have used both the Leica DISTO and the Bosch distance measurement devices, and can attest that the LEICA costs twice, but outperforms all the Bosch offerings by several times! There is simply no comparison!

I also knew of Bosch having delicate plastic gears on their forced rotation sanders. Instead, my Makita BO6050 has worked well and is powerful, so powerful (750 W) that you really need to learn how to tame it, needing some practice. Be careful on avoiding to change the mechanism from forced rotation to random orbit free rotation and viceversa when the platter is rotating.

Keitley… a name I will never buy again, much less recommend. Their DMMs are to delicate, easy to damage from static voltages. Definitely look in otger direction.

I became the de facto neighborhood bike mechanic when my kids were growing up (they are all middle-aged now) – and kind of stayed with it. I got a hold of a Park Tool book on bike repair and then learned as I went along. There are probably as many specialized tools for bikes as there are for cars. Some come from component manufacturers like Campagnolo, Cannondale, SRAM and Shimano. Some of my tools tools came/come from specialized suppliers like Phil Wood, Jim Langley, J.A.Stein, and Chris King. But there are lots of others like Pedros, Bicycle Research, Unior, Cyclus, and LIFU who make a smattering of the most common bike tools. But the 3 companies I named are sort of the kings of the hill – all making quality products. Like you I have a fondness for some of my old VAR (French-Made) tools.

Fred,

Great deep dive. You too Stuart’s exercise and ran with it.

I like that you mentioned Var Tools for bikes. I only have a few of their pieces from 40 years ago with I was a bicycle and moped mechanic. They are curiously and wonderfully designed.

Electronic and electrical T&M is just like power tools – what is best depends on what you are doing, for example, field technician, research lab, design engineer, or testing.

My current scope is a Fluke 192 scopemeter, which is portable, and like most other portable scopes, has a great feature for an automation guy: isolated channels (each channel has its own ground reference, which is great for differential signals such as RS422 encoders). There isn’t a lot of choice for quality portable scopes; last time I looked, it was basically Fluke, Tektronix, and R&S.

To give a different example, a while ago, I did work for a company that was doing multi-GHz RF testing; the test engineer’s preferred brand was Keysight (then Agilent), although they also used R&S, NI, and such.

From what I’ve heard, I’d totally agree with Rigol as the default oscilloscope brand for personal use; pretty much anything cheaper is junk. Maybe think of them like HiWin is for linear guides. Anyway, if I was buying a new personal scope for electronics work, I’d look at a new Rigol or a used R&S scope.

Wrenches (Mechanics) – Stahlwille
Wrenches (Close Quarters) – Omega Technologies
Socket Sets – Nepros
Torque Wrenches – Sturtevant-Richmont
Dust Extractors – Fein
OMT’s – Fein
HD corded portable power tools – Mafell
Table Saws – Hammer
Band Saws – Laguna
Plumbing Wrenches – Ridgid, Reed and Wheeler Rex
Pipe Cutters – Ridgid
Tubing Cutters – Imperial and Ridgid
Tubing Benders – Imperial and Yellow Jacket
Wood boring bits – Wood Owl
Fortsner Bits – Famag and Fisch
Metalworking drill bits – Cleveland, Chicago-Latrobe
Aircraft drill bits – Pan American Tool
Plastic cutting drill bits – W.L. Fuller
No-Mar countersinks – Amana/Timberline
Countersinks – Weldon, Keo Cutter
HD Soldering (think roofing) – American Beauty and Hexagon
Non Sparking Tools – Ampco
Tight spot screw driving – Anex (Kaneko Mfg.)
Power carving – Arbortech and Foredom
Pyrography – Razertip
Wood threading – Beall Tool
Clamps – Bessey, Kant-Twist, Urko, and Williams (bridge clamps)
Trowels – BonTool, Marshalltown
Cauking Guns – Cox North America and Newborn
Carpet Tools – Crain
Moderately Priced Saw blades – Freud (plus their Diablo brand)
Sharpening Stones – DMT (Diamond)
Carving knives and gouges – Flexcut, Two Cherries
Electrician tools – Klein, Greenlee, Ideal
Pneumatic Pin Nailers – Cadex, Grex
Pneumatic roofing nailer – Hitachi
Torches – Harris
Bolt Cutters – HIT (Toho Koki)
A/C Tools – Mastercool, Yellow Jacket
Threaded Rod tools – MCC
Table Saw Push Blocks – MicroJig (GRRipper)
Surform style rasp – Microplane (Grace Mfg)
Sanding Disks etc. – Diablo, Mirka
Carbide Tipped Hole Saws – MK Morse
Utility/Craft knives – Olfa
Leatherworking tools – C.S, Osborne
Pipe Threading machines – Oster, Rothenberger
Gear Pullers – OTC
Hobby vise – Panavise
Cable tie tools – Panduit
Scroll Saw blades – Pegas
Adze – Ochsenkopf, Pfeil
Specialty hammers – Halder, Hazet, Osca, Picard
Stone hammers – Trow&Holden
Hobby power tools – Proxxon
Roof/Ladder Safety – Qual-Craft
Festool Domino add-ons – Seneca Woodworking
Paint spray guns – Sata (Sata GMBH)
Deck Screw guns / nailers – Senco, Tiger Claw
Scrail gun – Fasco
Pneumatic Mallet – Taylor
Welder – Miller
Deburring tools – Noga, Shaviv
Stair building tools – L.J Smith
Water filter wrenches – Superb Wrench
Glue Guns – 3M, Surebonder
Glass cutter – Toyo
Bicycle Tools – Park Tools, VAR Tools, Hozan Tools

When shopping for soldering stations, I went with Hakko and loved it. When shopping for an upgraded soldering station, I went back and forth but the Hakko also won me over.

My current Hakko doesn’t come with any tips, you select and buy your own.

Most inexpensive soldering irons come with a conical tip, and if you want a chisel tip or other style or size, order replacement tips.

As for the colors – *shrug* – never bothered me, I like the the blue and yellow.

When I needed a desoldering gun, a reader made a recommendation and I cross-compared and ultimately went with Hakko there too. No complaints. So when Hakko won me over in 3 out of 3 purchasing decisions, and those decisions have led to positive experiences, that’s the brand that I default to.

Weller’s also a good brand. It’s just not my top-of-mind brand unless we’re talking about soldering options under $50. They of course have premium options to, and maybe I’ll eventually try it if I need another soldering station.

Thanks – I’m not at all familiar with Micsig but will look at them further.

I had an Instek that I passed along to someone else, and have a Rigol and Agilent/Keysight. I’ve been watching the market, and if I had to buy again today I would simply stick with Rigol.

I’ve seen all manners of portable oscilloscopes, but I haven’t been compelled to try any yet.

For power supplies, I went with Extech, Agilent/Keysight, and Keithley, and I went with Instek for a DC load as an upgrade/complement to my BK Precision. After talking with different brands and watching how they progressed over the years, and in my own experiences, that’s why I would go with Instek. But they don’t seem to have kept ahead of other brands in some other equipment areas.

The difficulty with test equipment is that some brands tend to be aimed at educational institutions and industry, suck as Tektronix, and you pay a lot more for reputation than you do features and capabilities. I couldn’t find a reason to go with Tek over say Rigol, but the Agilent seemed to be competitive at the time and I got great pricing through a dealer.

Instek seemed within each, but I also know certain tool brands and manufacturers also use them.

Amprobe vs. Fluke is something I’ve been meaning to look into. I tend to default to Fluke and Pomona for handheld tools and cables, but I’ve also had some good experiences with Amprobe demo units. There are going to be differences, I’m just not fully aware as to what they are.

For benchtop I have Agilent/Keysight, but I’m not sure what brand I’d go with today. I’m not as proficient at LabView as I’d like, and so available software that doesn’t require much programming is a crutch I’m eager to look for. The DM utility (Benchvue predecessor) from Agilent/Keysight is perfect, but new users have to tack on Benchvue subscriptions for a similar software package.

Thanks!! I’ve got one in blue (1/4″), and it might eventually earn top-of-mind presence. I can recommend it, it just wasn’t the first brand to come to me.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004HQGDYK/?tag=toolguyd-20

First off I’d pare down that list mostly on the basis of carrying about a dozen different battery brands around. So then you’d focus on the tools you use the most and that would kill off a bunch of other choices. Power tool batteries often cost most than the tools themselves and unfortunately they aren’t universal, even if internally the vast majority built these days rely on only 2 different models of Panasonic cells.

Second, in the electronics category, which is my bread and butter, I disagree.

Soldering: Might be nit picking here but Hakko is a joke. Where do I begin? Well to begin with, it’s blue and yellow and kind of looks like a kids toy. It comes with a conical tip instead of a chisel point so first thing you have to either take a grinder to the tip to fix it or buy a real tip. Second, there is only an up button. You can’t adjust anything down except by cycling all the way around. That’s like trying to text with a flip phone. The two claims to fame is that it heats up faster than Weller and it has a wider temperature range. Both are true statements. But you can’t solder anything at 120 F and you fire scale everything at 900 F so what’s the point? Second the reason it heats up faster is simply that there is less thermal mass. That sounds good but it also means it cools down and loses heat much faster. It’s the reason that we need a soldering “gun” for soldering large wiring on goofy military connectors that would turn a chip or a small signal wire into a glob of melted plastic by the time it gets up to temperature. So you save $10 with a Hacky I mean Hakko but then spend it buying proper soldering tips so might as well buy a professional tool which for most people is a Weller. Now of course I’m probably being too hard on Hakko here because you can spend $500 and get a great soldering station that eliminates all my complaints that finally competes with a $100 Weller but what you get with a $500 Weller is a full blown surface mount repair station with all the bells and whistles like hot tweezers, vacuum desoldering pump/parts holder, etc. Sorry if I just feel like this is sort of like when Consumer Reports ranks Toyota vehicles automatically better than domestic brands and freely admits that they didn’t ever do an unbiased comparison.

Multimeter: Amprobe. Sister company of Fluke. Several reasons here. Amprobe and Fluke both use the same quality control lab with the same specs. They both use the same rubberized plastic material for their cases. So in terms of construction and quality, it’s neck-and-neck. Amprobe for whatever reason is sort of sold as the “consumer grade” similar to Dewalt vs. Ctraftsman but the differences end there because Fluke and Amprobe are truly separate companies and there is nothing about Amprobe that looks like a compromise. So let’s take a high end pro user case such as a motor shop technician. This isn’t your run of the mill electrician that can probably get buy with a basic “Harbor Freight” meter and only buys the Fluke for the bling factor. So for troubleshooting one of the first tests they may run is an insulation resistance or “Megger” test. Amprobe has the AMB-45. It’s pretty long in the tooth though and street price is around $450. It has a couple other useful functions that can make it almost a backup multimeter but it is clearly nothing but a “Megger”. The latest in that market is the Klein ET600 which has better ratings and a street price of $150, almost 1/3rd the price. I’ve used the ET600 as my daily driver (I work for a motor shop) now for several months and all I can say is unless I’m testing 7200 V or higher motors, I don’t need anything else. It’s that good. Over at camp Fluke they have the 1587. Street price is around $900. This is hard to compare because frankly it’s not comparable. It has a full fledged multimeter built in that does ALMOST everything you want a multimeter for in a single ultimate bling package. I like it a lot to the point where I wish the competitors would ditch the stupid “0-10 A” current meter that you really can’t use most of the time and just go for a similar insulation resistance tester/real multimeter combination. But that doesn’t exist anywhere else so you can just buy that Klein with the money you saved not buying Fluke and still have money left over. Score here is 1 for Fluke fanboys or 1 for Klein (that isn’t even in the race). Gotta admit this is Amprobe’s weak spot right now.

So getting into true “Multimeter” testing the big use case for a motor technician is drives. For drives you will need diode testing, capacitance testing, resistance testing up to 10 Megaohms (testing for shorted semiconductors), true RMS DC and AC voltage testing including “Low Z”. This is where the Fluke 1587 falls down. In camp Fluke the choice is 87V at $450. In camp Amprobe it goes to the AM-570 at $150. Comparing capabilities, the Amprobe has a built-in “tic” (voltage field measurement) and a built in LED light. From experience both are not very good features so I wouldn’t count these as a plus for Amprobe. So Fluke wins the bling factor at a 300% mark up over Amprobe but in terms of capabilities they are identical.

Then switching to online testing for a motor shop tech we need volts and amps, and also (for 3 phase motor replacements) rotation testing. In camp Fluke we just have to augment that 87V. We have to add both an AC and DC current probe like the i410 at $300, and buy a separate 9062 at $450. We could buy the Fluke 325 at roughly $300 as long as the motor is under 400 A. The multimeter functions on that one are so compromised though that it’s really not good enough to do much more than basic testing. So based on price alone the i410 or something similar as an add on is the better way to go if you already have a good Fluke multimeter. Over in the Amprobe camp we have the AMP-330. It has double the range at 1000 A AC or DC. Plus it has a true RMS multimeter built in that rivals the capabilities of the multimeter portion of the Fluke 1587. And instead of an insulation resistance test as the extra feature, it has a rotation tester built in. So for live testing we are truly looking at a one meter solution at under $200. If you aren’t into drives testing then you won’t even need the AM-570. Also it has a dual range function where the nose has a separate current sensor that works down into the low amp range on small motors (#14 wiring) so a separate smaller clamp meter isn’t needed, something you don’t get with Fluke as anyone can tell you where just rolling the wire around changes the readings! And unlike the AM-570, the “tic” tester in this one works really well.

So in summary, Amprobe cannot possibly match Fluke for bragging rights on bling factor. A 200-300% markup on what amounts to the same thing just can’t be topped. But when the comes to basic functionality and USEFUL features Amprobe beats Fluke hands down in every category of multimeter. This isn’t just a Dewalt vs. Milwaukee fan boy argument or someone reading specs off a specs sheet either. But I will admit my Amprobe meters do look very nice when sitting next to Milwaukee tools and Fluke meters look very nice next to Dewalt tools. I’ve used all of the above meters on a daily basis for over a year and I know the ins and outs of every one. I’m currently carrying Amprobe for a reason. I have the AM-570 for drives testing, AMP-330 for live voltage testing, and the Klein ET600 for resistance testing.

Oscilloscope: For a bench top, it’s hard to go wrong with Rigol. Tek is just selling the same old tired stuff and hasn’t made any significant retooling efforts in over a decade. There are several hot competitors but hands down Rigol beats them in terms of price/performance by a pretty decent margin for lab/bench top use. But if the above multimeter argument is any hint, I’m not much of a bench top guy. Unless I pull the vehicle and toys out of the garage, I can’t even reach my “bench”. Mostly I work off a Dewalt portable bench (which Stu rates highly too). But have you checked out the Micsig’s? It’s got almost all the power of the Rigol but it’s a field version.. The only thing I’d say Rigol beats it on is the programmable interface stuff but honestly you can just save the data via wireless or USB stick and do all that over on a laptop. The Rigol feature is neat but limited anyway. Plus it’s a tablet…you get all the power and features of an Android tablet strapped to decent oscilloscope hardware for a “basic” 100 MHz oscilloscope or a really nice setup if you need a bunch of macros to make Automotive work easier. When I say basic I mean the power of modern DSO’s that can even do halfway decent FFT’s for instance and have huge memories for data collection unmatched by anything before them. For radios (GHz) range then obviously Agilent becomes a better choice and for logic testing where you need to read dozens of channels at a time, Picoscope specializes in that niche market.

Power supply: Instek. Yep it’s way overpriced but good for what it does. In the digital signal generator category I hate to use them considering that any day now I expect the company to disappear but it’s hard to ignore the Koolertrons.

Fenix lights for the win! I have a pd35tac and a hardahat mounted hm65 that I use every day at work. I love them and would replace immediately if one broke. There are at least a dozen other guys at work that have them too, and love them.

Now there are several guys at work that have olight lights and love them too. I just wasn’t interested in their specific charger requirements.

Best air hose is flexeel from coilhose

Light as a feather and durable as they come