# keeping your tools neat starts with the box



## gpop (May 14, 2018)

I wouldn't expect this from ridgid. Brand new power pony.


----------



## Switched (Dec 23, 2012)

I kinda expect it everywhere now.

It seems the majority of people working, hate what they do and don’t believe that if your paid to do a task you should do it to the best of your ability.

Couple that with companies that won’t purchase good equipment, won’t train, think quality control is a joke, and we have what we have...

Broken half assed products in a time where the ability to make great things is everywhere.


----------



## TGGT (Oct 28, 2012)

Rigid needs a phone call.

Sent from my SM-G930T using Tapatalk


----------



## mofos be cray (Nov 14, 2016)

"Oh you mean you wanted a tool box that you could put stuff? Yeah, those cost a lot more."


----------



## MotoGP1199 (Aug 11, 2014)

Box was probably made in china with a harbor freight spot welder. Correction....... with a spot welder not good enough to be exported to the US

looks like only one of the spots welds was half way decent


----------



## paulengr (Oct 8, 2017)

Switched said:


> I kinda expect it everywhere now.
> 
> It seems the majority of people working, hate what they do and don’t believe that if your paid to do a task you should do it to the best of your ability.
> 
> ...


You know unlike resi guys about 80% of my customers are repeat business and despite salesman best efforts mostly word of mouth new customers.

Word gets around quickly. It takes a lot of good consistent work to get a good reputation but just one bad job to ruin it. We try to approach every job like we are advertising for the next one, because we are.

You have some customers that come back no matter how bad you mess up. Others you can never please for whatever reason. But if you want to grow the business you can’t afford to lose customers to things under your control.

The spot welder totally missed. Give Ridgid a chance to make it right. If not, move on. They are definitely a value brand, like some but not all Harbor Freight store brands. So sometimes you get what you paid for.

Even premium brands have problems too. Earlier this week I just made it in the door of a plant at 4:30 AM Saturday with my Dewalt electricians bag and the shoulder strap buckle blew apart sending the bag and tools flying. Not happy since I paid premium money on it but I’ve had it 3 years.


----------



## splatz (May 23, 2015)

Ridgid is one of those companies, like Greenlee, Klein, and many others, that decided to whore out their once-good name, put out cheap, chintzy, low-quality, low-price-point, big box store products, and make a deal with the devil (in Ridgid's case Home Depot). This is what happens. 

Best you can hope for is the tools they always made are still good. Ridgid was a pipe tool company long before they made cordless drills, shop vacs, gang boxes, etc. Their pipe tools are still good as far as I know. Still made in USA. Likewise with Klein, their hand tools had a slump there for a while but they are now as good as ever, but their testers, meters, and other trash are, well, trash. 

It's part of a larger trend, bigger than tools and trades, it's a hollowing out of the accumulated value in the world economy. This is the Chinese long con. 

I have been watching the Made-In part of labels for a long time, since I was a kid, over 40 years. I have watched China go from a small player to completely dominant in that time. The only reversal of the trend that I have seen was the last three or four years. Right now, if you go in Home Deopt or Lowes and look at the made-in labels on Raco boxes and covers and conduit, you're going to see more Made In USA labels (and more Canadian steel) than you have in 20 years. Also a lot of junky fittings from India. You're starting to see European manufacture too, go to Automation Direct and you'll see more made in Italy and Turkey than you'd expect on terminal blocks and other hardware. 

With China's prospects recently changing and looking fantastic for the future today, let's see how this trend of recent years holds up after January 20th.


----------



## HertzHound (Jan 22, 2019)

Maybe Rigid is still a pipe tool company? But the parent company puts the Rigid label on everything. Maybe the drills are a knock off of Milwaukee?


----------



## splatz (May 23, 2015)

HertzHound said:


> Maybe Rigid is still a pipe tool company? But the parent company puts the Rigid label on everything. Maybe the drills are a knock off of Milwaukee?


Ridgid is now a subsidiary of a paper tiger. The parent companies have more to do with Wall Street and banks than tools and trades. When they bought Ridgid, they bought the pipe tool company and the name. I believe when these things happen, their intention is more to whore out the name than to make good pipe tools. 

This chart is banks rather than tool companies (which is a lot scarier), it would be interesting to see something like that for tool companies, but I think the general shape is the same. The electrical manufacturers (Schneider, Eaton, Sonepar, Legrande, etc.) are going through similar consolidations with the bigger eating the smaller. I don't know exactly what the end stage of this looks like but I am pretty sure it's not going to work out great for me.


----------



## 99cents (Aug 20, 2012)

It’s more complicated than that. Emerson owns Ridgid but TTI has license to the name for power tools.


----------



## TGGT (Oct 28, 2012)

splatz said:


> Ridgid is one of those companies, like Greenlee, Klein, and many others, that decided to whore out their once-good name, put out cheap, chintzy, low-quality, low-price-point, big box store products, and make a deal with the devil (in Ridgid's case Home Depot). This is what happens.
> 
> Best you can hope for is the tools they always made are still good. Ridgid was a pipe tool company long before they made cordless drills, shop vacs, gang boxes, etc. Their pipe tools are still good as far as I know. Still made in USA. Likewise with Klein, their hand tools had a slump there for a while but they are now as good as ever, but their testers, meters, and other trash are, well, trash.
> 
> ...


I don't notice anymore made in USA now than I did 4 years ago. I still need to go to dusty corners of the internet to find many things made domestically. 

I do notice that despite many people's concern about China, Milwaukee continues to get hard earned dollars. We simply can't help ourselves.

And the T&B Indian fittings emt that were okay a few years ago are total trash now.

Sent from my SM-G930T using Tapatalk


----------



## Friddell (Nov 28, 2020)

gpop said:


> I wouldn't expect this from ridgid. Brand new power pony.
> 
> View attachment 152205
> View attachment 152206
> View attachment 152207


Hey where can I go to ask a quick question about breaker boxes?? I need a lil help


----------



## gpop (May 14, 2018)

Friddell said:


> Hey where can I go to ask a quick question about breaker boxes?? I need a lil help


Diy forum site. Some of the guys from this site help out over there


----------



## 99cents (Aug 20, 2012)

TGGT said:


> I don't notice anymore made in USA now than I did 4 years ago. I still need to go to dusty corners of the internet to find many things made domestically.
> 
> I do notice that despite many people's concern about China, Milwaukee continues to get hard earned dollars. We simply can't help ourselves.
> 
> ...


India makes complete trash. It makes China look good.


----------



## 99cents (Aug 20, 2012)

Bosch is 92% owned by a charitable foundation.


----------



## paulengr (Oct 8, 2017)

Some of this goes the other way. A Chinese company bought the name Westinghouse and licenses it but that’s it. With Westinghouse motors for instance the smaller ones are still made in South Korea and the large ones in Round Mountain, TX. Nothing has changed other than some of the profits go to China. Same plants that used to build motors still are.

This is a far cry from the total destruction of Reliance and the gutting of Baldor.


----------



## just the cowboy (Sep 4, 2013)

That heavy tool box fell on your foot right. You are now initialed to a sample of every tool they make to keep them quite. Oh no I'm thinking like the *_* generation, shoot me.
Cowboy


----------



## samgregger (Jan 23, 2013)

Hey hey, the 12yo Chinese girl that did those welds tried her best.


----------



## gpop (May 14, 2018)

Sent pics to my supplier, He forwarded them to the ridgid rep with the details of the original order.

I get a e-mail back asking me about the pictures as the ridgid rep can not tell what part is broken. Supplier said he was just going to order a new box then send the old one back.

Before ordering this i told my boss that ridgid was the best on the market and the pony motor will still be kicking arse when i retire.

Boss is all "dam your retiring soon by the looks of it".


----------



## gpop (May 14, 2018)

just the cowboy said:


> That heavy tool box fell on your foot right. You are now initialed to a sample of every tool they make to keep them quite. Oh no I'm thinking like the *_* generation, shoot me.
> Cowboy



lol. Hell if i had managed to get it out of the cardboard box before the handle fell off i might have dropped it on my foot. 

If i sue ridgid next on my list is greenlee for selling me a slug buster with a set of stainless dies that do not fit in the preformed plastic box. Nothing like sharp cutters rattle around in the box with my girly little E&I hands.


----------

