Readers have been asking for updates on Stanley Black & Decker’s new Craftsman tools factory, which as far as I am aware is still expected to open in 2021.
In case you get the wrong idea, the image above was grabbed from Craftsman’s social media feed; no new tools have come out of the the plant yet.
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Craftsman has responded to users on social media, saying:
The Fort Worth plant will manufacture a wide range of “Made in the USA” CRAFTSMAN mechanics tools, including sockets, ratchets, wrenches, and general sets, using globally sourced components.
Back in December 2020, well into the COVID pandemic, Craftsman announced that their USA-made tools would be coming in 2021. 2021 is now halfway over, and we haven’t see any updates yet.
Stanley Black & Decker is currently hiring in the Forth Worth, Texas region, where their new Craftsman tool factory is located, and that’s definitely a good indication that things at the facility have been progressing.
So far, I’ve come across listings for an Engineering Manager, Machine Operators, Heat Treat Operator, and other similar positions. Stanley Black & Decker also participated at a recent virtual job fair for the area.
I wish I had more news than this, but Stanley Black & Decker have been extremely tight-lipped outside of rare investor relation or social media announcements.
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If I had to guess, I would predict that we’ll see a very limited rollout of new USA-made Craftsman tools next fall, just in time for the winter holiday shopping season.
In other news, whenever I visit my local Lowe’s store, I always check to see if there are any noteworthy Craftsman tool developments. During my last visit (June 2021), I came across this Craftsman combination set that’s made in India. It seems that this is the set featured in the Craftsman promotional image, above.
Please let me know if you’ve heard of any other updates regarding Craftsman’s new Texas, USA facility!
Jared
Well, here’s hoping something comes out soon!
I also have my fingers crossed they come out with good stuff to show off the new USA manufacturing – not just another rehash of the “iconic” raised panel wrenches and acetate screwdrivers (I personally don’t like either of those tools).
Lets see some sockets to compete with Gearwrench.
Tony
I saw the made in India combination wrench set at Lowes. They looked like the worst wrenches I have seen since the old Buffalo tools.
Chris brown
I agree with you 100% makes you want a China wrench lol.
Russell
On Garage Journal there was a thread about an eBay seller selling what appeared to be new USA Craftsman sockets that were styled like the current Stanley ones. Some also seemed to be factory seconds with no recess for the ball on the ratchet to go into. Theories ranged from fakes to preproduction runs.
https://www.garagejournal.com/forum/threads/new-stanley-craftsman-usa-sockets-showing-up-on-ebay.481107/
Jared
That was an interesting thread. All rumor and conjecture – it might not mean anything at all – but still a fun way to kill a few minutes. Thanks for sharing.
MM
Just this past weekend I purchased a handful of Craftsman sockets at my local Lowe’s to fill in some missing spots in my toolbox. They happened to look like those from the ebay listing in your link. It was a few random sizes, 3/8 and 1/2 drive, deep and shallow. All had that hollow outline text.
Joe
I was the first person to purchase a set from that seller and started the thread on GarageJournal. They literally look like the current Taiwan offerings with “USA” stamped big and bold on the sides. The smaller sizes have that annoying double detent on the drive end. Some of the larger sockets had no detents at all. They’re weird to say the least.
E
These are prototyping parts to test downstream processes. The new tools will look notably different from the existing tools that you find at Lowe’s. No raised panels on the wrenches and new ratchet handle geometry. Sockets are redesigned as well.
Mike
Well it’s a start in the right direction. Now we just need to get rid of the “globally sourced components” part, especially if the raw materials are hechco en China.
Itisnotme
Amen.
Sunny leveson jones
The US has really tight regulations on made in the US and so for example recycled steel even domestically recycled steal is not made in the USA, which can be a huge problem to make tools 100% in the USA
Mike (the other one)
Correct. It can be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to trace the origins of the steel that is melted down and used in new items, so companies use the “with global components” to cover their bases.
Stuart
That’s basically what I was told by a Stanley Black & Decker marketing executive a few years ago.
Matt the Hoople
I work for a Fortune 500 manufacturing company. We have several factories in the US. The thing is, at least as of about 5 years ago when I was last involved in the topic, there was (is?) no officially published requirement for the percentage of content required to call something “made in the USA”. A general rule (not official) used by a lot of industry is 70% minimum US content. The thing is, the content is value and not necessarily volume or mass. This means that a manufacturer could spend $3 on all foreign sourced parts and spend $7 on US labor to assemble the parts into a finished item and they meet 70% US content. It’s really up to the manufacturer to determine what they want to consider US made. Note, I’m not a lawyer and things may have changed since I was last involved.
Funny thing…a few years ago I bought a pair of sneakers that the packaging stated made in the US. On the individual sneakers, one said made in US and the other said made in Malaysia or something like that. I guess that company figured they could put one $5 foreign made shoe and one $15 US made shoe together and call the pair “made in the US” and save $10 per pair.
Russell
In 1999 Stanley got into trouble with the FTC for mislabeling mechanics tools as being made in USA even though basically all that was done to them here was heat treatment and finishing. This led the FTC to come out with the all or virtually all standard for being labelled made in USA or just USA. There’s also the “Buy American Act” which only requires products to be manufactured here with at least 50% (I think) domestic content for government/military purchases.
MM
There is a bunch of shady stuff going on in that regard. Several years ago I purchased an industrial air compressor for my machine shop. The company who made it was big about marketing it as “made in America” and it had a massive American flag sticker on the tank with smaller ones here and there. Yet the description also mentioned the compressor casting itself was made overseas. I knew this going in and purchased the compressor.
What I found was that the vast majority of the parts on the compressor were imported. Only the motor, belts, and air tank were USA made. Most of the parts were fine, the electrical controls were high quality, but one of the valves was utter garbage. After a while I had a follow-up conversation with the maker and I told them I thought it was a bit misleading that they plastered American flags all over the place while in reality a lot of the unit was imported. They were quick to tell me “Oh, to make sure there’s no confusion we only put those flags on those parts of the compressor which are made in the USA”.
Yeah, right.
Incidentally I’m not knocking the compressor, it’s been 100% reliable aside from that one crappy valve (which, I should note, they offered to replace with a USA made valve at no cost to me). But I did think that nonsense with the flag sticker was very misleading.
Rick
A comment on “globally sourced”.
I bought a pepper grinder a few years ago, it had a small American flag on the box. Upon further inspection, it was made in China, distributed by a Canadian company, but proudly filled in the USA.
Matt the Hoople
The value of the pepper was likely greater than the cost of the grinder.
My favorite are Milwaukee products. “Designed in USA. PROFESSIONALLY manufactured in China”.
I’m not knocking China as a whole. It all depends on how close of watch the company keeps on the manufacturing processes and materials. The Milwaukee stuff seems to be pretty well made in general.
Steve
My favorite is “Made For USA”
Keiko
If you are really inquisitive and creative, create several compelling resumes for each of the open job positions. Should you get a screening call, you can inquire into the position, timing, staffing, etc. Heck, if you are really good, you could get an on-site interview, facility tour and access to a range of inside management.
Stuart
That would cross too many lines. I won’t seek information using deceptive means.
JayD
Trying to get your eagle scout badge I see?
Stuart
It’s called professionalism.
Chris
Interesting to see a post regarding this, I was just wondering about this earlier today!
Joe
Whatever their reason is for not providing a possible ETA, the least they could do is tease some pictures to get people excited. Just combing through the comments on their social media posts nets a lot of frustrated fans that just want something, anything. It seems every other tool company shares sneak peaks and gives information here and there whenever a new product is being introduced.
Every time I walk into Lowe’s and look at the current Craftsman offerings, I’m overwhelmed with disappointment. I want something to be excited about.
One thing I wish Craftsman would get rid of are their cheap, junky, rebranded Stanley pliers. They’re an absolute embarrassment. Make them in China, I don’t care… just give us something better quality than those things. I wouldn’t go as far as giving them to someone as a gift, I would be embarrassed.
Kent Skinner
Nice to see SB&D doing the right thing with CMan. Hopefully they make quality tools in the US at a fair price.
Plain grainy
$900 million deal in Jan 2017. Sears holdings will get royalties for 15 years. And has a right to the craftsman brand name for 15 years.
Sears holding sold its assets to ESL investments in 2019. So I assume they now have the 15 year royalty & brand name rights?
Harry
Wait a minute, you guys ramble on and on about global components, and hope this and hope that but, no one says anything about a Craftsman wrench set made in India on sale at Lowes? Hello, this is a new low for the Craftsman brand. Made in India wrench sets are the stuff Harbor Freight is made of but, not Craftsman. Actually, some of the Quinn, Doyle, and Icon tools currently offered at Harbor Freight look much better than the current Craftsman offerings at Lowes. I hope you guys aren’t too disappointed with the new SBD US made/assembled Craftsman offerings if they ever actually happen. I think I’ll stick with Tekton.
Jared
That assumes a bit much in my opinion. I consider “country of origin” a shortcut for assessing quality, not a definitive answer.
I don’t like the raised-panel wrenches in the first place, but there’s no reason to assume these ones are junk just because they are made in India. They might well be manufactured to the same specs as any other version of these same wrenches Craftsman has sold.
Williams is a perfectly respectable brand, yet they have lots of Taiwanese tools in their catalogue these days. I appreciate some are upset about the shift to overseas production – but I don’t think that necessarily implies bad quality. The Taiwanese Williams sockets are quite good.
Proto isn’t entirely US-made anymore either. The imported stuff is still high-quality.
My point is just that a US-made tool usually implies at least a certain level of quality (if for no other reason than it doesn’t make sense to make cheap tools in the USA) – tools from other countries just have a wider spread.
Lynyrd
USA Mae of global Components is nit USA Made. It’s a marketing con job. When something is actually USA Made, meaning assembled and of U.S. material, there is no tag line “…with global materials.”
SBD invented this B.S. and continue to legally get away with it.
Bob
If SBD is procuring steel plate that was made by USA steel mills with some quantity of recycled steel in it thats fine with me. Not economicaly or environmentally practical to process virgin iron ore anymore. Or if they are buying rough forgings and starting from there, if it was from steel that was processed in USA I am fine with that as well.
BUT if they are importing foreign plate or foreign rough forgings and processing it in Texas I am not going to be happy. Especialy given the fact that Texas has a pretty extensive domestic steel industry.
I will say even if a company wants to procure USA components some industries/products just don’t exist anymore. However I do believe they can still get USA forgings of USA processed steel.
Pretty sure it can be done but cheap enough to be sold at a mass market retailer for cut rate prices? That remains to be seen.
MM
I’m 100% sure you are correct that they can get US steel and there’s no reason why they couldn’t forge items the size of hand tools either. That doesn’t require any particularly exotic equipment or processes. But sadly that work seems to be moving overseas due to a combination of lax environmental regulations and cheaper labor. For every one of us that might willing pay extra for a quality made-in-USA tool there are twenty who will buy whatever is cheapest from Amazon instead.
Two years ago I went looking for a really nice digging fork (garden tool). I came to learn that one of the most well regarded makers of shovels, spades, forks, etc–Spear & Jackson–recently shipped their forging operation to India after hundreds of years in business in England prior. I managed to snag one of the last Made-in-England forks; I ended up having to import it from Australia of all places as every US dealer was sold out.
But the real loss to American industry has been the heavy side. There are things we once could build that we no longer can build domestically anymore, many of them of great strategic importance.
Scott
Channellock, Wright, Snap On, SK, etc seem to be able to get U.S. steel
Nathan
while I’m highly interested I’m hoping they don’t make a single raised panel wrench.
I hope instead they clone or follow the MAC tools that are made and the more modern tools designs. Like Ibeam wrench handles and etc.
I’m holding off on buying a number of things until I just have to have one because I’d like to buy a USA made item. Like ratcheting wrenches.
Either way still good to think about more US made products.
Nathan
you know that steel or other alloys might come from Canada or Mexico too. I mean how horrible if the steel was to come from plants in Mexico where they have access to mine other minerals.
Or how about how US steel mills that have shut down – can’t be restarted in any sort of timely manner. Naw can’t be right. Or could it be that to get started they need coal – but can’t get any quickly – and there isn’t any train traffic there becasue it’s been shuttered for 4 years and the tracks shot.
etc etc – gee they could get US steel if they wanted to – maybe not. you know the US auto industry might well have dibs on all that is made here. Hard to believe.
Dana Kilner
I will say, since the new nafta went into effect, SBD cant seem to move things fast enough, many of their grinders have already moved to india, all of the dewalt corded tool production moved to mexico when they closed greenfield, indiana site, etc…. yes they have bought a few sites in the usa, but they are moving a large amount of production outside the usa recently. And while i hate to say this, i understand at least a portion of it, no matter how much they pay many Americans do not want to work in factories any longer, especially when the companies want the factories to run 7 days a week, 24 hrs a day to keep them profitable – which i also understand. I have seen a few companies make this work through modified schedules for employees – for example 6 crews to run a factory – 1st shift 1st crew mon – thur (4 day week) 2nd crew fri – sun (3 day week), but this is labor intensive. The other option like so many have pointed out is partial automation with mainly highly skilled engineers and technicians running the facility to keep the robots working. It is beyond difficult to find the right solution now because it is dependent on how much you can invest quickly and the readily available workforce. But i also see this race south becoming less and less viable quickly as wages in mexico are rising far more rapidly than most realize, in the northern part of the country wages have gone from less than 7 to almost 11 dollars per day in just a couple of years which while that is minimal compared to the usa, it is still no small amount when you look at a factory with 5,000 workers X 4 dollars per day.
Dennis j Johnson
Hmmm, Craftsman “made in Texas” sounds good to me, looks like something to look forward to!
Nathan
So I was searching for something else and saw this thread – thought I would ask if there was any sort of update for the craftsman USA made hand tool bit.
Stuart
Unfortunately, there’s no news yet. I’ll press for updates after the New Year.
Nicholas Ranella
Have you pushed for any updates since the new year?
Stuart
So far there has been ZERO communications. They’re unlikely to provide any announcements until the first tools start shipping, but I’ll see what I can find out.
Joe E.
February 12, 2022… and still not a single update. The least they can do at this point is show some teasers or something. I was at Lowe’s today and stopped by the tool department. Looked around for a few moments, shook my head and continued walking to the register.
There are so many people commenting on their social media posts who are just completely frustrated. All they get for their inquiries are the same, generic corporate response.
It’s time for Stanley Black & Decker to sh*t or get off the pot.
Stuart
I agree, but what can they say? If they post an update and miss the target again, will that be better or worse than if they didn’t say anything at all?
E
I work at the new Craftsman plant, things are rolling slowly but surely. Please be patient 🙏
A-Bomb
Good to know E! I sure hope we see some tools from the new Ft. Worth plant soon. Father’s Day or sooner would be great.
E
I wouldn’t expect Father’s day, but definitely shooting for this year. Barring major issues, this is likely.