Milwaukee and Ryobi are owned by the same company.
Ryobi occupies the entry level/budget market, and Milwaukee is the upper tier/professional market.
I think Rigid is also owned by the same company and occupies the market between the two.
They also manufacturer tools for other companies, like I think Walmarts Hart brand.
There’s quite a few brands under Techtronic Industries (TTI):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Techtronic_Industries
TTI’s brands include:
Milwaukee
AEG (Under license from Electrolux AB)
Ryobi (Under license from Ryobi Ltd)
Homelite
Empire Level
Imperial Blade
Stiletto
Hart
Hoover (In US)
Oreck
Vax (In UK and Australia)
Royal
DreBo
Dirt Devil
Would be cool if all their brands could use the same batteries…
I believe that “Hart” at Wal Mart is also a TTI brand, roughly Ryobi quality but of course so many fewer offerings. I think Wally World got pissed that Stanley B&D wouldn’t do a DeWalt line for them and made a better deal with TTI.
They must be decent since Walmart still sells them and i’ve not seen much, if any, bad press about them.
Honestly debated picking up some Hart stuff at a couple points, but I’m a cheap miser who keeps falling back to using his something like 70 year old corded drill.
Keep using that glorious 70-year-old corded drill. So, long as it’s not a fire hazard, and it’s doing what you need, don’t let anyone convince you that your relationship with your drill is wrong. Either they don’t understand the love that you two share, or they’re jealous
This is correct. I almost worked for them. They also make (or at least did) make the pump/sprayer for swifter wet jets, Hoover and dirt devil vacuums, and I’m sure I’m forgetting some others. Their HQ is where I first saw a 3d printer like 15 years ago. It was a pretty interesting company.
Ryobi. It’s the cheapest way to collect tools I use once or twice a year when they go on sale at Home Depot or Direct Tools Outlet.
What about non-power tools? I always end up buying Ryobi for power tools and Husky for non-power tools. Those seem to always be the cheapest options whenever I have to buy something.
The best thing about Husky tools is their warranty process. If one breaks, you take it to Home Depot, you show the customer service person, they shrug, you go get one from the shelf, you show the customer service person you’re not screwing them, and then you leave. You are without your tool for about an hour while you make the trip, as Home Depots are abundant, and other tool brands with similar warranties are less so. Die Hard tools from Advanced Auto has similar advantages, however they also tend to be priced higher without a ton of advantages. So, either go Home Depot for the abundance of locations, Harbor Freight for having the cheapest entry into this warranty process, or whatever Home Depot, Advanced Auto, Harbor Freight, or Lowes is closest to you.
The biggest downside of this warranty process is that the tools are made cheap enough to be replaceable (or disposable) from the perspective of Home Depot et al. If you want to avoid this, I recommend the sorts of tools you can get at Grainger. SK is my favorite out of that tier of tools. These are generally about the same quality as tool truck tools, but at a lower cost since you’re not having a representative of the tool company come check once a week if you need any support. The warranty process though will be longer than the tool truck brands as those will usually see you out of hot water in a week, whereas the non-truck professional tools might be in the mail and back to the manufacturer for about a month or so. The mechanic I grew up seeing recommended non-professionals getting a set of tools from Harbor Freight for that they’re very cheap, fine enough, and most homeowners will never use any given hand tool enough to warrant taking it for warranty service. He himself had two sets of tools in his shop. There was the set of Snap-on tools he used day to day, and the set of Craftsman tools he used if the Snap-on tools died so that if the Craftsman tool broke while he was waiting on the Snap-on guy to come fix things up for him, he could just hop in his truck, go to Sears, and get the tool replaced and only ever lose an hour of work.
Finally, and this is what I most recommend, try looking for used professional tools from the “mail it back” warranty brands second hand. These companies generally don’t honor warranties for professionals buying these tools second hand as the warranty originally sold was for the lifetime of the original owner, but most of them are perfectly happy to provide warranty service for whatever random jackass bought an SK ratchet off a Harley-Davidson technician who was retiring. A lot of the time, the people working at that higher end market care more about maintaining brand reputation than they do losing a few nickels and dimes along the way. Further, they will often treat tools they receive back as R&D for what manufacturing flaws were missed along the way, and so a few tools from non-professional users that they can analyze will help them keep selling tools to professional users who will be very unhappy if their tool fails. The brands in this category to look out for are:
- SK Tools
- Williams
- Wright
- Wera
- Others that I haven’t thought of in a long time
Generally speaking, I do think Wera is a bit overrated, but if you’re in Europe they’re absolutely where I’d send you. The other thing I like about going second hand like this, is that what I don’t like about the cheap tools model of warranty is the wastefulness of not fixing tools. Extracting and refining metal takes resources and creates pollutants. I’d much rather take older tools and fix them
I run Ryobi for battery tools and Harbor Freight stuff for most of the hand tools. I splurged a bit and went with Tekton for my wrenches. But really, harbor freight stuff has been absolutely fine for me, especially their new higher tier tools like Icon and Quinn.
Same, with one big caveat: I wont use HF for anything safety related. They’ve had recalls on their jackstands. If it can fail while I’m under it, I don’t go HF lol
Contractor here. DeWalt 20v is my main cordless brand. I’ve beat the shit out of them for years. Never have given me problems, plus I’ve moved over my lawn care tools to the 20v offerings because I’ve got more batteries than I know what to do with . I migrated over from the 18v post battery lineup, which was disappointing that DeWalt didn’t support their 18v line anymore. DeWalt 12v line is a major letdown; no real tools outside of a couple of drill/driver atomics. I do have a couple of 60v DeWalt tools, but we’ll see if DeWalt continues to support that class.
I did buy into the Milwaukee 12v setup, because sometimes I only need a light duty drill/impact and their 12v line has a lot of nice options for lighter duty cordless tools.
Corded, I have no brand loyalty and buy the best tool for the money (no festool because I don’t have a money tree in my backyard). Bosch, Makita, DeWalt, Milwaukee, etc… I do a little bit of research and buy the best rated tool. I never buy anything that has moving parts from harbor freight. Anything I do buy there I consider a ‘disposable’ tool and can’t depend on it to do it’s job.
My tools make me money, and I try to treat them well, so when I need them I can count on them to work.
I’m on the yellow ray-gun stuff too, I’ve only ever managed to burn a drill armature out (but then I was using a 20mm carbide hole saw on 10mm steel plate so it’s my own fault), found a replacement armature for £26 and it was easy to fit.
I also have the 9Ah monster dewalt battery and their usb topper, absolute life saver if you’re on a job site, or going camping.
I heard they’ve released an even bigger one which I’m yet to look at, and they have a power station thing that looks cool as hell.
Same to almost all of this. My 20v dewalt line has heald up quite well with some pretty heavy usage.
Air tools have been Bostich or porter cable though truth be told I’ve had issue with porter cable. My new framing gun is an off brand Fram Amazon. It was on Hella sale and I needed one quick. It replaced a porter cable and has surprisingly held up really well so far.
I also have a light line but unlike yours I’m in the Makita 12v camp. Have a of their lighter smaller 12v tools and love them. Truthfully I’d be tempted to go all Makita if I wasn’t so heavily invested in dewalt but I don’t really have any dewalt complaints.
You should know that both Milwaukee and Ryobi have the same parent company.
Ah, the illusion of competition, like half the products in the grocery store.
Its not like they are the exact same tool.
I have a ton of Ryobi tools and am perfectly fine with them, but they are not designed and built to the same standards of use and durability as Milwaukee. That’s why companies have multiple tiers to cover everyone from the occasional user to the professional. Some companies really go nuts with that and have seemingly a million brands (I’m looking at your SBD) but thinning out a company’s lineup of too many brands is sometimes very tough from a customer loyalty perspective.
Makita has worked well for my cordless needs. Corded, I’m mostly blue Bosch.