Hi, my name is Stuart, and I am a tool user.
I use cordless drills, impact drivers saws, vacuums, drain cleaners, leaf blowers, calipers, micrometers, height gauges, screwdrivers, pliers, wrenches, punches, chisels, wood planes, files, deburring tools, pencils, rulers, tape measures, fret saws, hooks, loupes, tool boxes, organizers, magnifiers, scrapers, picks, tweezers, cutters, wire strippers, multimeters, electronic test equipment, thermal imagers, wire crimpers, flashlights, soldering irons, vises, clamps, glue spreaders, riveters, and the list goes on.
ToolGuyd started off as a personal passion project when I was in the middle of grad school. A little less then 4 years later, I earned my research doctorate. That was 10 years ago: So I Finally Earned My PhD!!
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I was fueled by my interest in tools and the industry, and the same continues to drive me.
What’s different about a new tool? Why? How? Is it different or special in any meaningful way that might benefit users?
Isn’t this what you want to know when making most purchases? I strive to learn this for myself, and to also share it with readers.
Can brands’ consumer marketing efforts answer these questions? Their social media announcements and newsletters?
We need to dig deeper.
As an end user, reviewer, and voice in the tool industry, I need to understand what’s new, different, or better about a product.
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Will it save the user time?
Will it spare the user some effort?
Will it improve performance or end results?
Are there any design or engineering compromises, so as to achieve a lower price point?
Are we expected to find appeal in a new product just because it has a trusted brand name slapped onto it?
Sometimes that might be enough. A new utility knife is (usually) a low-cost and low-risk purchase, but the same cannot be said about $400 impact driver kits.
When a brand says their new product will “set new standards,” but they don’t elaborate, and they said the same exact thing about its nearly identical predecessor, is the wool being pulled over our eyes?
When a brand advertises that a new product “provides even more power to get the job done,” but the difference rests solely in how torque is tested differently for the more premium-priced product, what exactly are we paying more money for?
Back in 2009, New York required most drivers to pay for new license plates, under the pretense that the new plates were needed for safety reasons. But, it really came down to the state needing the money, as acknowledged by the governor in an interview (source: NYTimes).
In 2019, they required drivers buy new plates again, this time because of legibility issues with cashless tolling, red light cameras, and other devices (source: NYTimes). Or is it about money again?
What’s the difference between an innovative, competitive, and user-benefiting product, and a cash-grab devised by marketing team looking to pump up their sales figures?
Clear explanations, deeper insights, and comprehensive understanding can sort things out.
I have grown a bit spoiled over the years; thanks to my press and media relationships with competent and professional PR, communications, and marketing contacts, deeper insights and understanding have come easy to me.
I don’t know whether it’s the nature of the times, “influencer marketing,” or something else, but things are not the same today.
Traditional media relationships opened the door to answers, discussions, and interviews with engineers and product managers. All of that – everything that can be gleaned outside of a simple fact sheet or press release – has been critical towards my developing deeper insights.
Such information and insights helped keep me interested, excited, and passionate about tool developments.
If I better understand products, I can better provide readers with what they might need to make well-informed purchasing decisions.
That’s not to say that media distributions and press releases have ever provided me with deeper information or insights. They provide timely information, and helped to make deeper insights more accessible.
I’ve expressed my dissatisfaction with the direction some companies have been heading in. Now, nearly a year and a half later, the issue hasn’t gotten any better.
New or less familiar tool brands contact me on a regular basis. They want to send me tools for review purposes, often using “in exchange for review.” I ask what’s different about the brand, and rarely receive a satisfying answer.
All tool brands are looking to drive sales and earn a profit, but it is becoming increasingly apparent which brands care about end users, and which don’t.
I understand that some questions cannot be answered in detail in order to protect proprietary information.
But when tool brands are incapable of answering fair questions that would help me better understand a product for ToolGuyd purposes or as an end-user myself, that usually means one of two things – the person I’m communicating with is inept or inexperienced at media relations, or the information is withheld because it makes the brand look bad.
Is lying by omission ever better than honest transparency?
I don’t know what’s worse, when marketers cannot answer questions about their products, or when they won’t.
Either way, this is not how things have been, and it’s not how things should be.
I asked one particular brand if they remedied a product quality issue that ToolGuyd readers had brought to my attention. Instead of answering the question, they pointed me towards an influencer’s “wow this is awesome” social media postings about the product.
How am I supposed to treat tool brand equally in my news and review coverage when this is how some of my questions are answered?
I can adapt to “influencer marketing” practices if needed, but not without a fair amount of kicking and screaming.
Daniel
Name and shame. If you let things slide without much squeaking then those marketing tactics just work so why stop.
I don’t understand the need to be polite to these profit driven corporations. They want to make good tools and job site solutions but above all they just want to make cash.
Stop walking on eggshells for companies.
Stuart
I have my reasons, and would add that there’s a very big difference between tactful and walking on eggshells.
In the context of media and press relations, if a brand has become incredibly unproductive to work with, will calling them out publicly help anything?
I will call out egregiously bad behavior if the context calls for it, such as when a Makita USA managers resumed leaving shill comments under a fake name and the brand refused to address it privately. https://14cyiuhvcgv.com/makita-xgt-comments/%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E
JoeM
I’m sorry, Stuart, I love and appreciate all you do for us, but I have to pretty vehemently agree with Daniel.
Name and Shame so that we, your readers, can Boycot. “Vote with your Wallet” right? If their tactics lead to a specific, Stuart-Educated, group of their demographic suddenly dropping off their profits, that is a clear vote for “You’re doing it wrong (Company X)” and can easily have them reach out to you in desperation to fix this laxity.
If they want a social media “Influencer” style war, we can wage it, too. You don’t have to do this alone, you have a lot of loyal followers. Only difference is you call us your “ToolGuyd Readership Community” instead of followers. That is, of course, the correct term for who we are, as we don’t blindly follow you, it’s often at the assistance of other readers that we enjoy the benefits of being here. Need I mention fred as an example?
Tactically, all you need to do, is assign someone as your counter-social-media influencer, and let that person do whatever TicToc (or however the hell that demonic hellspawn is spelled) Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, or other social media account blitz you need to show our collective protest against the tactics of these tool companies. It can be subtle, as little as someone making a temporary tattoo for a video, that is just the ToolGuyd Logo, record it going on their skin, and them taking out all the tools they have from the problem companies, putting them in a box, and leaving them by the curb with a note “Can’t trust these anymore.” Or as complex as the collective accounts we have sharing your articles (such as this one) and saying “Don’t buy (Company X) anymore. We can’t trust the reviews they’re buying from social media influencers, instead of giving us the information we need!”
I’m not volunteering for this job, as I actually have a lot of anger toward social media, for many of the same reasons, but many more of my own. But surely, some of the younger, more Network-Savvy readers here can start this, and let some of us older folks follow them to support the effort. Because we share your frustration, Stuart. You’ve not only been there for us when we needed you, you’ve been like a lighthouse, guiding us where we need to go, for the tools we actually want to buy. We don’t want your method to die, we want to fight against these bad business trends you keep reporting about. It’s in our best interest to support you.
Remember our funny post from earlier last week?
“Bow Before Me, For I Am Root”… You’re Root, Stuart. You need only give permissions to the right users, and the work can be done for you. One less thing on your shoulders. And remember, you have some contractors and construction site operators who read this, and operate crews. The loss of a problem company in these difficult times, could mean that company goes under, even if it’s in just one country among dozens that read this site!
Scott+F
Jumping on this train – I read almost every word put up on this site, and I understand why you treat your relationships the way you do – relationships are what allowed you to create what you’ve created, and are the cornerstone of continuing to have that edge and ability into the future. BUT…. that assumes a willing partner.
Once a brand goes down the path of bogus marketing, faux-improvements, dismissive PR, isn’t it too late? If you shared, could the brand have turned it around? In all reality, probably not. Initiatives that cause such major shifts carry inertia, which means you need to be bigger than them to make an impact. That is where those who subscribe to TG come in, you know what they say about the whole versus sum of it’s parts.
This is not about boycotting brand X or creating ‘Do not buy THIS tool’ posts – but about sharing specifics about the encounters that have you so up in arms, and painting the landscape to show your team (us) where everybody falls on it. What brands have shilled out and who continues strong – who is in the middle ground where you fight for information and who sends you a full product spec and test sample by merely asking a question? There may be competitive advantage to some of that information, and obviously you would not disclose past, or even near, those lines, but the value a brand places on you as one of it’s embassadors is directly correlated to the value it places in it’s products and customers. Your reader base CARES about that. Many other sites may not, but yours do. And we read all of the theoretical articles you post about some of these tool-tangential topics – give us some meat!
Whenever I Google something I am disappointed when it’s not something I can find a TG article on, because there is nowhere else like this. With a publisher who cares a ton and readers who care as much – you have inertia.
Kind of like the old forums, but still kicking – good thing you stayed away from vBulletin.
Stuart
Some brands have always tried to be extremely controlling, and influencer marketing gives them the control they always wanted, where they can reward sycophants and ignore all others. There’s not much to do about marketers who hold seem to believe everyone is working for them and should be sharing their exact messaging exclusively.
I like doing things my way. I developed my professional attitudes and practices in a very different atmosphere, at a time when brands’ relations with print magazines and the like expanded to accommodate online media channels such as mine. How many print magazines are still around, and what are they doing online or in print?
The atmosphere has changed, and I need to adapt, and these conversations serve to share with you all what’s going on, help to keep me in check, and help me determine the best path forward.
Press/media communications used to be sent out well ahead of product launches. Now, they often coincide or follow announcements on social media and in email blasts. There are lots of different parts of today’s social media and influencer marketing trends.
What I simply can’t get around is how much this has affected communications I used to take for granted.
Brand B: 1 + 2 = 4
Paid influencers: “Brand B got 1 + 2 to equal 4. Buy it!!”
Me: Hey, how does that work?
(2 weeks later, if at all)
Brand B: Ah, here you go: 2 + 1 = 4
Meanwhile, brands still on top of things:
Brand A: 1 + 2 = 4
Me: Okay how does that work?
(Quick turnaround)
Brand A: 1.49 + 2.49 = 3.98, which we round up to 4 in accordance with accepted standards.
Me in a post: “Okay, so this is what it means.”
As for forums… I might be retiring ours eventually, and have been looking for a way to both preserve it and allow for open conversation here in some capacity. https://discuss.toolguyd.com/
Stuart
@Joe
And that is the main reason why I won’t.
Should I boycott brands that don’t cooperate to my liking?
It’s a slippery slope from there.
What about then only including brands that contribute advertising or sponsorship support?
This is part of the reasoning behind transparency. It’s not only to communicate about what goes on behind the scenes, but to keep me in check.
Ken
Small typo partway through, “Am we expected to find appeal in a new product just because it has a trusted brand name slapped onto it?”
As always I appreciate the insight and transparency on these articles.
Stuart
Thanks! *fixed*
A W
One more: “That’s not to say that media distributions and press releases have ever provided me with deeper information or insights.”
I think you want the double negative here: “that’s not to say … [they] have never….”
As always, great article, and I really appreciate the insights that you have. I am a Milwaukee user because of your articles and a recommendation years ago that their Christmas holiday special was a good one. At the time, they had a decent one handed recip saw and DeWalt didn’t, and it seemed clear from this site (articles and comments) that those two cordless brands were probably the ones worth investing in.
Stuart
No – things like PRs don’t really provide deeper info or insights. They’re cursory summaries.
They sometimes have added context or quotes, but that’s usually adjacent to what I’m really looking for.
But I’ve found that brands that don’t do this effectively rarely provide pathways towards the deeper insights.
If a brand doesn’t do a good job with the introductory details and what-not, what are the chances there will be easy access to resources and insights beyond that?
PRs make things easier – they include fact-sheet and sales sheet info in an easily digestible, filterable, and shareable format.
Fazal Majid
Can you list which brands have gone all-in on influencer marketing without jeopardizing your relationship with them? That information itself, along with knowing which brands are difficult to work with, is in itself valuable for a tool buyer.
Stuart
Not easily.
In some cases there’s no relationship to save, and in others things might be too complex.
Transparency helps you see how I’m doing things and what I’m dealing with. Beyond that, there has to be a constructive goal.
Sharing too much can also potentially affect relationships and dealings independent of frustrating ones.
Meaning, I don’t want one brand that has always been great to work with to start treating me differently – for better or worse – because of something I share about dealings with a different brand.
I tend to point fingers at PR or marketing inadequacies within posts on a case by case basis where relevant, but only to avoid anyone thinking I am to blame for the lack of details or insights. That’s usually as far as I will usually discuss things.
If you want examples of exceptionally excellent PR and media support, I can definitely do that.
TomD
I suspect that Stuart will lean away from doing this, partially because brands change their plans, and partially because they often hire insane marketing companies that don’t know what they’re doing, and airing the dirty laundry doesn’t help in the long term.
What you should do is watch how he talks about the brands he DOES talk about, both promoted and just “look at this thing”. Read between the lines and you can sense quite a bit.
You can also have the annoying situation where the “by absolute far the best tool for the job” brand may be incredibly incompetent at marketing such, and do everything wrong; but it’s still the tool that does the job best. Encouraging people not to buy it because their marketing is idiotic would just hurt the buyer.
What I think you do find out is the brands that HAVE lots of good things to talk about, talk about them. The brands that are currently in holding patterns for whatever reason, they still have marketing departments and those departments begin to flail around trying to find something new or nice to say.
Stuart
You can sometimes read between the lines, but often not accurately.
I have quite a few conversations via private email. “How come you haven’t been reviewing so-and-so brand/tool/type of tool?”
Usually the answer is – I have finite time, I didn’t know it existed, I didn’t think readers would be interested, or other such reasons.
TomD
Here’s the problem. Influencers are insanely easy to influence! There’s acres of documentation on this, but there are so many influencers that will write a glowing review of a product just because you send them one, and that doesn’t even cover the ones that will go further if you PAY them. So marketers wanting to do their job the easy way just go that route.
But, assuming the influencers are actually skilled at the tasks they’re showing and not just terminally online, you can get to know more by watching the tools they use when they are NOT reviewing a product.
Rog
Did you intentionally post this before your Lennox article so it didn’t look like you were calling them out specifically for their non-answers?? 😛
Stuart
No. Lenox answered my recip saw blade questions promptly and in a manner I cannot complain about.
Every brand gives “non-answers” on occasion, usually to protect proprietary information.
I have barely any relationship with Lenox, and my recent interaction with them has been more productive than brands I’ve had years of relationships with.
You will know when I’m mildly or severely disappointed with a particular tool brand’s marketing practices.
BrianA
I’m really hoping the economy goes further into the shitter as it will topple the social media house of cards held up by ads, major companies have already massively cut back this year but we need more to bring it down.
I can not imagine that companies think that online ads & influencers actually generate ROI, outside of stupid niche overpriced trendy garbage. Online ads can’t be more effective than TV or Radio, but they are a heck of a lot cheaper and easier to do.
There are a lot of suckers in the world. You should not believe 99.9999% of any review or product plug from any social media. My wife is suckered by deals posted on FB with glowing reviews, and I am trying to get her to understand its not actually a deal she is in reality overpaying for the product and its junk. I am surprised that some people still dont understand the content displayed to them is all driven by their activity. Wonder why a persons political or social views dont change, because they never get stories from other perspectives because their news feed just keeps in line with what they usually read.
SamR
As an international graduate student, this part is dear to me!
“ToolGuyd started off as a personal passion project when I was in the middle of grad school. A little less then 4 years later, I earned my research doctorate. That was 10 years ago: So I Finally Earned My PhD!!”
5 years ago, I started the SJD degree in law, which is equivalent to Ph.D., and tomorrow will be my dissertation defense.
I came across the tools because of how boring law research is, and I wanted to do some labor work in my free time.
I am happy to find someone from the academic world impacting the tool world.
Franck B.
I think you might be surprised how some construction crews are these days, the composition has changed a lot over the last couple of decades despite the stereotypes remaining largely the same.
Of course, the type of work will probably impact the people involved. Our crews, although we’re a GC, mostly specialize in new home construction, large remodels, and seismic retrofit. Of our core personnel (that doesn’t include workers hired “per job”, those are about 1/3rd), I think about 40% have degrees and even 2-3 have master’s. In management roles about half of our group have degrees as well, and I’m a dual engineer + JD. My sister-in-law also has a degree, holds a cosmetologist certificate (highly regulated in California) and is a journeyman plumber for commercial highrise construction. A lot of the skilled trades we employ as well have similar makeups in our area (the area may have something to do with it).
I was surprised at the level of education that makes up a lot of the construction personnel these days when I was first asked to help out by my friend that owns the company.
To bring it on topic, I hope some of tool marketing groups will see that demographics have changed and more and more customers are discerning and not so easy to dupe. I’m not implying this has anything to do with education because I don’t think it does).
s
college educated…
i’m an ‘educated moron’ by current social standards. i’ve ‘only’ got some trade school background, equivalent to a bachelors degree. college isn’t for me, i’d strangle a teacher.
but if you need a motor rebuilt without the manual, or some ideas on how to make something that’s never existed, i can be your guy.
i’m a tradesman as a career, but attempt to pull info on new products from everywhere, which ends up with a lot of youtube and ‘influencer’ type sources parroting the marketing stuff that never really gets into the meat of the ‘improvements’.
i’ve annoyed the Klein tools rep, telling him to his face i won’t use more than one of their screwdrivers because i can’t stand all my screwdrivers having the same tactile feel–blind tool pouch grabs make it harder to tell which one is which. i’m not a very good candidate for brand loyalty!
what i’m seeing in tool marketing is the opposite of educated purchasing. the more college-education, the more the social media and influencer stuff plays a larger and more critical part in any tool purchase. it seems it’s more important than ever to have a tool that’s well marketed to be better, versus purchasing the tool on it’s documented performance–by oneself or through a review.
there’s also the professional review issues– if someone like stuart makes an honest but negative review of any companies products, suddenly he gets blacklisted from ever testing that brand ever again! it leads to every review touting the brands ‘improvements’ even if they’re not all the time. a perpetual churn of lies that really only benefits the creation of a larger and more specific marketing department.
the circlejerk of specific brand fanaticism is also crazier than ever before. i was congratulated at one point for changing from using dewalt drill bits to milwaukee drill bits. it wasn’t so much my choice. i used dewalt for as long as they sold titanium-nitride bits. they switched from Ti to black oxide at the same time as milwaukee switched from black oxide to Ti. and if milwaukee changes, i’ll go to another brand that offers something similar. just recently tried the spyder bits– they do cut better/longer, but at 2x’s the price, and an alloy 1/4 hex shank means they’re not very magnetic, which means all my magnetic extensions are useless, which means i won’t be using them. but that won’t be in any professional review…
Stuart
If you’re negative in an honest way, and impactful enough for a brand to take notice, you’re impactful enough for them to want to maintain a healthy relationship with. Or at least this is true for most brands.
Stuart
Good luck tomorrow!!
AL
Shovel enough sh*t everywhere, and people will think it’s fashionable. That’s the tactic being employed with YouTube product placement.
I can’t really fault the content creators who moved from makers to filmers. There’s money in direct payment for product placement. Making inventory products on spec, or eeking out a %-age for low volume custom goods is not as attractive as getting paid to publish.
Naming is not necessary shaming. I’d like to know if a particular electric cooler is _really_ that popular, or are they paying for eyeballs. Same for products like Woodpecker, Laguna, SawStop. Easy to look popular when you give it to all the popular kids. For those old enough to remember, Members Only jackets were nothing special.
TomD
One of my rules of thumb is “how many beat up ones do I see?”
If all the people using Brand X’s tool/box/whatever are using very nice and clean ones, and I can’t find ones so dirty they look like they were rescued from the bottom of a lake, I get a little suspicious.
Stuart
I went out and bought different Ridgid Pro Gear 2.0 tool boxes specially for review.
I’ve been slowly replacing my L-Boxx, Systainer, and ToughSystem tool boxes in favor of Packout.
I have zero personal need for Ridgid tool boxes, and so my testing of them is purely for the sake of ToolGuyd exposure and review. It’s going to remain clean, I’ll use it for a bunch, and eventually donate it.
It’s probably never going to be filthy.
Al
But, Stuart, we don’t see you saying things like “I love XYZ. It’s the best tool for [blank].” While showing off a purty tool in a custom carved case. A tool that’s never been used enough to determine if it’s better than a rock. 🙂 We appreciate your honesty.
It’s things like the camera walk-by where logos are visible in odd locations. Like who leaves hammers lined up on top of a workbench underneath a spotlight?
Or magic tents that are shown folded up. Thirty seconds of struggling demo. Then, quick cut to a fully assembled tent with a steaming cup of hot chocolate. Those product plugs bring into question both the presenter and the product itself. Why fake it, if it’s so good?
xu lu
Stuart you laid out the right questions. However, there is little chance they will be answered objectively. I would further note they never have been nor ever will be. A tool which is say $200 or less, who really cares about best. If you assume the degrees of difference in mainstream brands are small which they are, reviews hardly matter excepting a tool that suffers a serious safety defect or possesses outsized functional benefits (are there any?). If you assume it is ALL PR, with bit if truth, you will not be too far off. This is why i believe, the most important thing is to focus on the battery platform, system and vision of the manufacturer. Geo also matter-Bosch in Europe may be fine, in the USA it may be another. Calling out eggregious marketing practices is thecwaybto go. If a company is ethically challenged, i appreciate you calling out and i stay away on principle.
Stuart
True. But if you ask enough questions, and talk to enough people, the haze begins to clear and you can see through marketing. Sometimes things are exactly as portrays, other times there’s another story beneath the surface.
Frank D
I have said this before about some websites regarding tools, and some YT channels … can’t stand them … but such seems to be the trend in marketing thing these days. Can’t go anywhere online without marketing having contaminated it. Five star reviews for free pre-release tool, one liners all the way to glowing review that misses the basics … for a sweepstake entry, … all the way to websites that refuse to disclose they’re just rehashing marketing promo for amazon links … to yt channels that just exist to nab free product placements from their favorite brands, then expand into competitors … but it is all about the free tools. No substance.
Saulac
I believe this “trend” will die out. People is getting sick of those “influencers”. Focusing on providing heads-up on new tools and deals. Ask yourself what you can do that those “influencers” can’t. Do education on useful but not well know tools and techniques. Do tool compares/ratings. Make your site a reference tool that people check before they buy something.
Kevin
I agree, but it’s what the prosumer tool game has become. I just have to laugh it off when I see examples as such because it kind of comes with the territory; just a product of aggressive capitalism in an equally aggressively competitive market. It’s a market where marketing budgets heavily outweigh R&D budgets, just because it’s more beneficial to make a good tool and hype it than it is to make a fantastic tool and not have as many people know about it and/or generate less excitement. It’s become a pissing contest for “specs and numbers”, and ambiguous claims sprinkled in. The market doesn’t warrant standardized bench testing methods for generating their performance claims so they can cook up whatever test conditions they’d like net a repeatable number that’s marketable so they can claim they’re that much better than the next guy on the shelf across from them. I’m optimistic that it will improve though. With things like YouTube becoming a ubiquitous source for third party testing (however crude testing in most cases), I know that the big brands are aware of rapidly growing interest in putting their claims to the test. Brands with less optimistic specification figures tend to be more well-received. I honestly believe there’s a growing demand for more transparency in their specification publishing and they know it. At a minimum I can say I’m certain it’s on their radar. Alas, only time will tell if anything materializes.
Stuart
There are some standardized methods. The Power Tool Institute, to which most major tool brands are members, has published guidelines for testing cordless drills torque.
https://www.powertoolinstitute.com/pti-pages/pg-procedures-guidelines.asp
Additionally, brands’ legal teams keep a close eye on claims to ensure nothing indefensible is said.
Kevin
Stuart, I’m actually curious because I know you have a knowledge of the industry as well. And I’ve always been divided on PTI. In the past I’ve sort of written them off because I don’t think i’ve ever encountered any endorsing symbols or seals from PTI in the real world. In the link you provided there’s marking you’d expect to see if a product was in compliance with the respectable bench testing measures; I’m aware something like it existed but have just never actually encountered it. Naturally my next question would be, if brands are voluntarily complying, why aren’t they acknowledging being in compliance? (Or just not easily perhaps. One would think they indicate it on packaging, on a spec sheet, some other combination or what have you.) My point being the whole purpose of third party testing standards is for end-user verification. Without it, compliance serves no purpose. I would think it’s antiquated agency whose endorsement would be meaningless to most consumers, so they likely don’t bother with it anymore. Using their own in house test methods for higher figures would easily supersede and arbitrary compliance endorsement in terms of marketability. I could be totally wrong and major brands could be running testing in accordance with PTI’s measures but I’d be more apt to believe they concoct their own. Primarily because to my knowledge there has never been a legal precedent set in the case of power tool specification publishing. For example, it’s very hard to claim a brand is false advertising when there’s no technical definition for “nut busting torque”. Likely why the common practice is using mechanically advantaged thread size that’s freshly greased. It’s a very common practice, but such conditions will never be encountered in real world applications. Again, I could be wrong, and if I am by all means correct me. I’ve been out of the game for a few years and I know things can change fast in this industry.
Stuart
I know little about the PTI, aside from the fact they’re an industry group.
If I recall correctly, I only ever heard from them the first time the CPSC was looking to require active injury mitigation tech on all portable table saws.
Kevin
I’ll have to read up on that, sounds very intriguing. Admittedly very good intention but a complicated matter to say the least. The only tech I’m aware of that ever gained traction was Sawstop’s (and very successfully of course). I’m sure the effort was outgunned by lobbying efforts. If it went anywhere it would either be forced licensure of the only existing tech, or a race to develop proprietary tech of unknown reliability. Honestly sounds like a superfluous measure. There should always be an emphasis on safety and respect for the tool (and personal accountability) for anything with a highly exposed, high energy blade coming out the top.
Emilio+Gonzalez
Once you accept freebies and other support, it’s not an independent review. You seem like a straight shooting honest guy with ethics and principles. I know that purchasing every tool that is reviewed can get expensive but that is the only way to really do it. Unless a company goes , here, give us an honest assessment. Good and bad. Yes, quality and customer service is not the same today. But, there are a few left that truly seem to care about end users. Deception is not or should be a marketing feature.
Stuart
Is there the potential for a review to be influenced? Absolutely.
If you think anyone who reviews a free test sample is biased, that’s perfectly okay – gather what information you might find helpful, and disregard all opinions or recommendations unless or until you trust the particular reviewer.
Also keep in mind that just because someone didn’t receive a free test sample, that doesn’t mean they’re more trustworthy.
There are some brands that will try to use test samples as leverage or a reward for praise. But, for the most part, nearly all of the brands I work – or worked – with have been honorable.
Bill K
Stuart, is by chance the “elephant in the room” China, the root cause for these changes?
Stuart
No, I can’t even see where that could be a factor.
Andrew
This is not an entirely new phenomenon in the history of tools. See for example the power of the Stanley marketing department and the purported value of all the different hand plane types, or the ‘special’ steel used in premium hand saws back in the day. There was lots of competition between many tool makers, with incrementally differing tools and incremental continual improvements.
Reading your article and the comments a few times, it struck me that what was really under question was what is toolguyd all about? What is its mission?
If it’s solely to test the tools, that can (obviously) be done independently of the marketing department. If they can’t, or won’t, answer direct questions about the tools, then doing an honest review and listing the unanswered questions in a transparent way is completely defensible.
My personal view is that people want a trustworthy, independent, authoritative source of information. Again, my view, the best way to demonstrate independence is to not take items from the tool makers and run the risk of being viewed as open to influence (of courses, that’s no guarantee of zero bias).
So how to pay the bills? Patreon? Buy the tools, give them to a trusted crew to genuinely test, report back. More site traffic, more ad revenue. I think there are plenty of people on the site that could provide a pool of reviewers. Putting tools through their paces via a pool of independent reviewers must surely be valuable.
Stuart
ToolGuyd’s mission has changed very little over the years.
At the beginning: to share my thoughts, opinions, and findings about tools on a platform of my own control. There was a lot of marketing information out there, but not a lot of insights, and so I had to dig deep and get my hands on different types of tools to learn more. I thought maybe all that effort could help others too.
Early on: I was hearing about more new tools, including some types I was less familiar with, and so I spent time learning more about what mattered. That became a part of things, to filter out fluff and answer “so what, why should I care?”
Now: It’s all of that, plus the goal of helping readers make better-informed purchasing decisions. And in between that, tools can be fun to talk about. For instance: https://14cyiuhvcgv.com/energizer-stranger-things-flashlight/%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E
Guest reviewers? I have tried this several times. The concept sounds great, but doesn’t work without a huge amount of effort.
Patreon might be an option some day, but I don’t like the idea of it.
ToolGuyd has been deeply fulfilling for just about 14 years now. The unconditional conversations, insights, and interactions have been a big part of that, furthering my interest and keeping me excited about tools.
Andrew
I think one of the big challenges you face is how to report independently in a regular timewise fashion, when many of the ‘improvements’ are incremental, and of questionable utility. It’s almost like reporting on evolution. It’s the same challenge the toolmakers have themselves, how to demonstrate ongoing innovation.
My feeling (and I haven’t checked this, so feel free to correct) is that in the early days of the site, you essentially reported on your direct experience, based on a certain point in your life when you were using tools to do a job. And you wanted to share that experience and those personally-gained insights with the world.
Now, it may be more like a wider market update. How many very similar storage systems can you personally work through in a meaningful way to gain that same level of insight? How many screwdrivers, or utility knives? That was why I was suggesting an expert reviewer pool, but I agree that is a significant amount of work.
Again, my personal view is that utility in the hands of the users wins. Everything else is, in some way or another, is a market push. So I personally would not try to validate the marketing claims. Why bother? If the claims are not apparent or easily understood by the user, then they are of very dubious value. Or alternatively, try to evaluate them independently, through in depth use case testing. I suspect you’re trapped between pillar and post to some extent here.
None of this is a criticism, I think your website is generally really useful, and I thank you for your ongoing effort.
Stuart
I had my own experiences already, but was also expanding my tool collection to tackle new tasks. I had a limited budget and couldn’t waste any of it on gimmicks or bad quality. So I examined nuances until I could make a decision.
I commented a lot on a tool blog and then wrote for them until I could no longer accommodate the time commitment. I then spent more time on an online forum. Threads were getting derailed by politics and were being deleted. I also saw the need for a “tool guide,” based on observing my colleagues’ tool use and what I saw in DIY and hobbyist project logs online.
I find joy in understanding, and a different kind of joy in sharing that with others.
On the bright side, some brands still maintain excellent PR/outreach/communications. I’m still learning, e.g. https://14cyiuhvcgv.com/cordless-sds-rotary-hammer-drilling-sizes/%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E
There are numerous complications with guest reviews. Maybe it’s something we can try again one day, but it’s too labor-intensive for right now.