Hello

Whats the gen on Machine Mart/Clark tools?

I recently bought a nibbler attachment for a drill, after about half an hours use the die broke which is replaceable at a cost, but the nibbler was supplied with two puches so I'd expect them to fail/wear with a much greater frequency.

Also bought a hole puch/joggler wich I was using to puch holes in my 16swg floor, as I'm plug welding it. I'm approximately 2/3 of the way around the floor perimeter and the tool is fooked, it has litterally fallen appart in my hands. I can reassemble it but thats not really the point. Am I expecting too much of my purchases or are they poor quality

The reason I enquire is I was thinking of buying a compressor from machine mart but dont really want to spend a lot of money on something that is poor quality, especially thinking of the safety issue with air receivers etc. Anyone had good or bad experiences with their small engine cranes as well.

cheers

Geoff

I found the best way was to go to a Machine Mart shop and have a good look at whatever I'm buying. It's very much a case of 'you get what you pay for'.
Most of the stuff is from China, Taiwan, Korea and so on. Some is OK, some is OK after adjustment, and other stuff is cr*p. Very little of the stuff is 'industrial grade', i.e. I wouldn't use it to make a living, but fine for hobbyists.
I have assorted MM/Clark stuff, including an engine hoist, and it's been OK apart from stupid details. For example, the hoist is robust and the important bits are well made and finished OK, but the handle used to haul it round the floor has bent, simply because the metal plate it's welded to is too thin. That's annoying!
If you want super-reliable industrial grade stuff then I recommend that you go for European or American kit - but it'll cost you.
MM aren't necessarily the cheapest, either. I've found a few reputable websites that sell UK-branded kit for little more than MM prices.
For example, World of Power sell a good range of air tools and compressors at comparable prices.

rgds,

David


[Edited on 5/11/04 by David Jenkins]

I tried one at a show and was very impressed with it. It was a car builder solutions tool and had different sized dies for other applications. I used it on some aluminium and steel sheet and it gave a burr free hole in both. I'll get one when I come to doing my bodywork this time as I won't need to deburr the backs of the sheet like after drilling.
http://www.nfauto.co.uk/punch_kit.htm

Most of the Clark stuff aint up to it, if I could be so bold have a look at the Sealy tools catalogue not top of the range but buy quite a lot of their stuff for commercial use and its not failed yet and it gets some abuse.
Shug.

Also bought a hole puch/joggler wich I was using to puch holes in my 16swg floor, as I'm plug welding it. I'm approximately 2/3 of the way around the floor perimeter and the tool is fooked, it has litterally fallen appart in my hands. I can reassemble it but thats not really the point. Am I expecting too much of my purchases or are they poor quality


Times may have changed, but I bought a joddler/punch from them in 1994 (£29.95, it has been used almost daily, and is as good as the day I bought it - perhaps a different supplier?

ive had crane, compressor, welder and plasma cutter from MM, no failures yet but only light use.

i do find that i suffer failures with the cheap tools i use at work, ie drills breaking etc. But ive just bought a new SDS drill for £40 and it is awesome as a chisel. so sometimes cheap tools are crap, sometimes they are good. I think you have to be more careful with the cheap tools. for instance, i wont be using this drill with a 4" wall borer again...

my 1 tonne engine crane and air riveter are fine. the welder has taken some good stick as has most other stuff. the compressor has a haesitant re charge, but what can you expect from something thats about seven years old and has seen regular use?

don't dismiss machine mart, they have some good stuff. stay away from their brake pipe flaring kit though, it's pure shi*e, no doubt, get a cam type one, perfect every time.

tom

I also had a brake pipe flaring tool from them -broke on first use ,'phoned them ,they sent replacement part within reasonable time . Have never had faith in it to use it again . ROD

i did my entire car with the brake pipe kit with no problems. never used it since though...!

Thier brake flair kit is Ok for copper but owt else I agree its a bag of shite.
As for the rest of thier stuff I think you pays yer money.

My brother in law used to be the manager of the local branch and he said thier stuff was fine till they started sourcing more stuff from China and pretty low grade Chinese gear at that.

I think finding high quality tools nowadays aint easy from any supplier,but there again look at how cheap stuff is, 25 years ago you couldnt even think of buying an aircompressor now a visit to B&Q with less than £100 or even Aldi with £50 gets you fixed up.

Cheers,
Bob

[Edited on 7/11/04 by splitrivet]

Yeah ,you're right . My Father , passed tools on to me that were HIS fathers ,wood chisels etc . Tools were MADE in those days ! Stuff is so cheap nowadays . But not ,I hasten to add, for some of us who are on a tight budget . Stuff should be 'fit for purpose' ,but what should we expect for a few quid? ROD

quote:

---

Originally posted by splitrivet
Thier brake flair kit is Ok for copper but owt else I agree its a bag of shite.
As for the rest of thier stuff I think you pays yer money.

My brother in law used to be the manager of the local branch and he said thier stuff was fine till they started sourcing more stuff from China and pretty low grade Chinese gear at that.

I think finding high quality tools nowadays aint easy from any supplier,but there again look at how cheap stuff is, 25 years ago you couldnt even think of buying an aircompressor now a visit to B&Q with less than £100 or even Aldi with £50 gets you fixed up.

Cheers,
Bob

[Edited on 7/11/04 by splitrivet]

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This is good stuff. The only thing that's failed on me is a soldering iron and they swapped it without question, everything else is still going strong.

Well!

I took the nibbler back and explained what had happened and got a replacement puch and die set, didn't mention the hole punch as I'd slipped off the rubber handles and fitted two lengths of 3/4 pipe, thought I might be on a hiding to nothing on that one, however I was just making life easier for my hands (being a Dupuytren's contracture sufferer) and not forcing the tool to do something it wasn't able to do.

So in the end I'm fairly happy in that the broken tool was replaced and the joggler/punch can still be used, just needs a bit of fettling once I've got some time to affect a permanent solution to the problem of the legs working loose from the body of the tool, first try will be bearing fit, after that its a drill and pin job.

cheers for the opinions

[
[Edited on 7/11/04 by splitrivet]

I've had mixed results from MM, engine hoist is great, its been used fairly often, on both locost and landrover, its a extra long, 1 tonne one, and is rock solid.
I also have a clark welder which has been ok, but is getting a bit worn out now, but its a budget 90A one so ive got my money's worth.

I also had a drill nibler and i swapped it after i broke the 3rd one, first one snapped the head off, second one snapped the cutter bit and 3rd one jammed, i now have an air one and its been great.

I have an aldi compressor and for fifty quid im laughing, its not got the flow rate to use bigger tools for any length of time but is ideal for hobby use.

Cheers

David

and i should point out the Aldi compressor is normally more than 50 quid, its just that someone noticed it had been reduced after a couple of weeks of being in the shop and bought one..... then had to go back and buy someone else one

We bought 2 of the small lathes to train pupils before venturing onto the man size machinery at a VAT free event.
One machine has been perfect, the other suffered from persistently blowing fuses- I enquired as to possible reasons for this from one of the shops operatives. He told me thast they didn't stock the fuses! and worse "have you been turning brass by any chance?"
Brass is our material of choice and hethen suggested putting a bead of silicone around the case where the shaft goes back into the gear box!! Whatever happened to British engineering?
We traced the fault back to a crappy fuse holde, with a crack in it, which costs about 35p from Rapid electronics. I haven't been back to see how much it costs at MM
Having bought quite a lot of Chinese equipment recently - Draper ex demo stuff, we have found the quality very variable especially heavy castings which seem soft. Most of out cash is spent with Gand M tools in Carlisle [ they have a website but I havent got the link here] who do some fantastic deals and stock Silverline and other well known makes at much less than prices seen elsewhere.

if axminister also sells the brake pipe flaring tool ??? i need from them the sierra hub tool..

Regards..

TKS

I have quite a bit of Clarke/MM stuff, not by choice but cos it's cheap.

I got an air punch/joggler, and it's great. By and large I find that Clarke air stuff is ok.

Hand tools I usually buy from industrial suppliers and get good stuff like Facom/Britool etc, as I am fed up with breaking cheap hand tools, I'd rather buy once expensively than drive out 3 times to buy cheap stuff.



On the subject of ALDI: the business principle that they make all of their profit on is credit terms, we did this one at college as a little "case in point"!!

They buy a months stock on credit terms (either 30 or 60 days, can't remember) and then sell to the public, on cash terms, at the cost price. Their profit is the interest paid by the banks on the cash paid by the public, against the goods which are unpaid until the end of the credit period.

I've spent many years working in quality assurance (no, don't laugh...), and the business of the brake flare tools ought to be put in a QA textbook somewhere.
In ANY situation where some people find that a tool is the best thing they've every bought, while others have them fall apart the first time they use them, it's a 100% certainty that quality control doesn't exist. Every part of a complex tool has tolerances, but in many of these Chinese tools the tolerances are wide - almost anything goes. Sometimes, by luck, all the parts are pretty much the right size, go together properly, and will give some lucky user a lifetime's good service. Then there's the others - when a tool is put together using parts that are way out of tolerance then it will never work properly, no matter what the user does to it. The ones made from a mix of good and bad parts will just annoy the user in some way or other, eventually.

David

That's very true indeed. I think the difference between the joggler/punches was that the one first mentioned was a manual one I think, and I have to say these looked a bit "cheap and nasty" and as the air one was only a few quid more I went for that!

As for the brake pipe flarers, get a lever one if you will do more than one car, or borrow one if not. All the other ones are crap basically. I have a Snap-On screw type one and it is crap, the spigot on the 3/16" die broke on the second flare!

I have a tool sold by automec now, which I picked up at a show, with tarnished anodising, for £50, normally in the demon tweeks catalogue at about £80.