Craptastic tools

I own a pretty good caulk gun. Bought it years ago. It’s served me well, but I can’t find it. Perhaps it’s on loan to one of my friends. There’s a chance it’s here but well hidden. With all the people moving in and out of the house, stuff gets misplaced.

No problem, I thought, I’ve only got about 4 caulk tubes to apply. A medium duty one from Walmart should do the job. There was a nice recognizable name on the side: Stanley. How bad could it be?

Awful.

The first thing I discovered is that while it appeared to have a built in cutter for the tube tip, it really didn’t. Sure, there was a hole for the cutter in the right place, but no cutting blade inside. It only massaged the nozzle without cutting it. After cutting it with my pocket knife, I discovered the pin to break the seal was almost too short to do the job.

One tube of construction adhesive did get successfully applied. Right as the second one began to flow, the caulk gun came apart in my hand. That was the end of that. I wasn’t happy.

Now I didn’t have high expectations from a Walmart tool, but really. One tube of caulk? That’s it? Of course, while the brand name is familiar, it was made in China. That’s the last Stanley tool I’ll ever buy. The name no longer has any value for me.

This wasn’t really a tool. It was more like a stage prop, like using a convincing fake rubber knife instead of a real knife. This prop just had to look like caulk gun long enough for a fool like me to purchase it. No way could it actually perform the job of a real tool.

Stanley joins the long list of other companies that traded a good name for short term profit. At least it was an inexpensive item. The worse washing machine I ever owned was a Maytag. They used to be reliable and well built. Mine never worked right. My bad luck was to buy one on reputation just as they stopped giving a damn about quality.

How do they build anything in China? Not with Chinese tools -that’s impossible. They must import tools from Germany or something.

-Sixbears