Several months ago, I received word that SK Tools were coming to select Lowe’s stores around the country.
I’m guessing that this was an experiment or test run to gauge interest and to see if the tools should receive broader distribution.
I checked all of the stores in my area, but never saw any of the SK tool SKUs in stock there.
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Checking Lowe’s website today, there’s no evidence the SK tools were ever stocked there – all of the listings are gone.
A focused Google search shows a bunch of Lowe’s product pages, but clicking through will take you to an empty page with “0 products.”
I could only find one page still up, for an SK 3pc wrench set, and it’s no longer available.
Lowe’s listing for this 3pc SK adjustable wrench set has the price at $24.98, which is actually not bad. Amazon has the same wrench set for $51.29 right now.
But if you search on their site, or for any version of the brand name, you get the same “0 products” warning as for all of the other SKUs they used to carry.
To me, this means that Lowe’s has ended their SK hand tools experiment, and I’m not optimistic about whatever conclusion they landed upon.
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Well, that’s a shame.
Shane
There was 1 store in my area that had these on the floor. I picked up both the SAE and metric 8 pc. ratcheting wrench sets for $49.99 each. They had the adjustable wrench sets. They looked nice and I would have gotten them as well but I never use them. The wrenches seem like good quality and came in a kyzen foam flat that slides into a drawer. I got them back in January and haven’t seen them since.
Eric
I think the Great Star acquisition turned a lot of people off. They pretty much shut down all US production and liquidated their inventory. So there was a period of time when getting anything from them was tough. Granted they seem to have moved some production to Pennsylvania. But some of it is being made in overseas. And from what I’ve seen on places like Reddit it’s hard to know where the tools are even made now. Most of the listings on the website still say USA, but some of the tools don’t have a COO stamped on them. It’s hard to justify paying a premium for a Made in USA tool when it could have been made in China or somewhere else. And you don’t really know what your going to get until it shows up at your door.
Eric
edit: Just checked out their site and they don’t seem to list country of origin on anything anymore.
Todd
Pretty sure if you can’t tell where they were made it doesn’t matter.
Thomas
I’m pretty sure if you’re paying 200% more for an American-made tool it had better say “USA” on it.
Stuart
I think Todd is saying that, if you can’t tell where it’s made, it’s imported. USA manufacturers don’t shy away from promoting domestic production and sourcing when they can.
dak
They make plenty of tools in Williamsport, Pennsylvania about an hour from where I live.
Rob
They were only seasonal pop-ups, dude.
S
I’ve all but forgotten about sk tools. They’re fighting an uphill battle trying to compete against the alphabet soup brands on Amazon that can cost less. And without a brick and mortar retailer, it really just becomes a different alphabet soup brand, just with a dash of history.
And in other tool news, Menards has entirely dropped toughbuilt for their own house-branded iteration of clip-on tool holster accessories. Maybe no news to people that don’t live within the Menards area, but huge for those of us that do. I can never count on lowes carrying much of anything, but Menards was always consistent with keeping stock on the shelves, which meant I could actually put my hands on it instead of resorting to ordering entirely online.
I fear this is going to further negatively effect the takeoff of toughbuilt’s stackable products, as Lowe’s seems more interested in promoting the Klein iteration instead, leaving only die hards to order the pieces online only.
Berg
One interesting thing I noticed with the new Menards ProLock pouches is that they are compatible with the Toughbuilt ones. You can attach a Cliptech pouch to a ProLock mount and vise versa. It’s not entirely smooth because the geometry of the ProLock mounts is a little different,but they both seem to latch securely.
They seem so similar I’m curious if they’re just made by Toughbuilt. If they are actually working together on them, I’d love if we could get a Menards version of Stacktech or something. The only modular storage they have is the basic 3 piece toolbox stack, so it seems like it’s about time for them to get more if a full system.
CA
Oof Marone! Already. I had high hopes.
Jeff Sill
Have many “old Sk Wayne ” sockets and wrenches from Grandfather back in the 80s
Mike Engelhaupt
My brother lost 3 fingers working at SK Wayne in Defiance Ohio in the early 70’s.
OldDominionDIYer
I bought some of the new SK tools and I was extremely disappointed, they’re awful. My brother has lots of their hand tools from 20 years ago and they’re fantastic, they have embarrassed themselves for sure, since the sellout. Not surprising it happens so often in these buyouts I suppose. Shame another solid tool brand is trying to survive on their former reputation.
Shane
Which ones are awful? The wrenches I have are made in Taiwan. It seems that is where most of the “premium” comb. wrenches come from these days. I have no complaints with the quality.
The good ole days are gone. What once was no longer is. Especially in regards to hand tools. If companies(brands) were as loyal to consumers as we are to them we would all be happy. Unfortunately, they are in the business of making money and the current economic reality is that to stay competitive or solvent most every manufacturer has to offshore. I’m a bit sentimental myself about the tool quality and pricing of 20 years ago but I’m also realistic and aware that deindustrialization is the cause.
Kentucky fan
Snap on
Williams
Proto
Mac
Wright
Those are all readily available made in USA options.
Micheal Brown
Cornwell ratchets, sockets and wrenchs are USA made also
ITCD
Everyone always forgets Martin. Cornwell also.
Stuart
Snap-on and Williams are part of the same company, and the same for Proto and Mac.
That brings it down to 3 manufacturers.
SK is gone. Armstrong is gone.
Eric
Oh well. I still have a set of of Craftsman Pro metric combination wrenches made by SK. I only use them sparingly now, but they are great wrenches.
Brandon
I have the full set of metric and SAE variants. Probably the best that had the Craftsman name on them.
Nathan
Sad but not surprised
MM
Agreed, it’s sad to see the brand fail but this is what I had expected. US made SK tools were great quality but SK never really had the name brand recognition of many others. The reboot was lost in the sea of other brand names selling similar quality foreign made tools. And, I suspect, that many people who were SK fans beforehand were leery of the new products like Eric wrote above. When Stuart first reported on SK being sold there were a lot of commentators lamenting their expected lack of quality going forward. That’s a bad combination: a brand name that few people are familiar with because it was never really marketed well, and those few who previously respected it for it’s Made-in-USA quality are now upset that it’s been moved overseas and are rightfully skeptical of the quality.
Joe E.
Lowe’s really didn’t need another brand has been.
Justin
I had SK double box end metric long flex head ratcheting wrench set that was $350 over ten years ago…I warrantied one of the five out once and after I needed to warranty another they had lost the patent and wouldn’t give me replacement save for a racheting non flex design that wasn’t even close… I was lucky enough to trade for $200 value for matco set that is way better and haven’t bought anything SK since
Frescapop
They are supporting Klein tools, now.
fred
I started buying tools in the late 1950’s. In those years and for 30 or so years more – tool buying was quite a different thing. Home Depot had not yet arrived on the scene. Retail tool outlets were scattered about and ranged from auto parts stores, hardware stores, plumbing supply houses, small-chain home centers, discount department stores etc. One way to compete was to offer something different than your nearby competitors. So, one store might offer different wrench brands. One store might sell Armstrong or Bonney, another Blackhawk or Proto. Some might carry SK-Wayne, Husky or Thorsen. Yet others might sell Stanley or Crescent or Williams. Then there were outlets for Fairmont, Martin and Wright. Then if you were living nearby a Sears – you likely bought Craftsman. Other USA-made specialty brands (like Granco) also filled niches.
Then the market changed significantly with the rise of Home Depot and some other mega chains. Mom and Pop hardware stores started to vanish. For these and other reasons, small auto parts stores that once dotted the landscape became less of a thing. Price competition heated up and brands that once were profitable were either bought-up and consolidated or disappeared entirely. With fewer independently minded outlets for the sale of products some brands were no longer sustainable. Other brands that produced product to be sold under the Sears-Craftsman banner lost their “best” customer when Sears went to Asia for tools and then ultimately sold the brand off to SBD.
With all of this background – and Lowes perhaps struggling to meet sales expectations for Craftsman wrenches – I’m not surprised at this turn of events relative to SK.
928'er
Thanks for the memories.
A set of Thorsen metric combo wrenches I bought circa 1972 are still my “go to” wrenches. Along with a set of Craftsman metric flare nut wrenches made by SK…
alltwist77
I’m a merchandiser that has been with Lowe’s nearly 20 years. SK tools were brought in as an I/O (in and out) item for the Christmas time gift ideas. They went clearance a short time after, and I took advantage myself.
Usually, this is how the company dips its toe into the water and see how a product is received. It wouldn’t surprise me to see SK show up again with more items leading up to Father’s day. They may or may not eventually find their way into a more permanent spot on the shelf down the road. It all depends on how the buyers feel they sold.
Stuart
I was specifically told they were not holiday promotional items and would not be included in holiday promotional displays. Promotional “gift ideas” tend to be available at most if not all stores.
Either way, they were available online and at a very limited number of stores. And now they’re not available online, and as you mentioned seeing them clearanced out, they’re presumably unavailable at all stores.
Jared
That wasn’t long. We never got these tools in Canada because it overlapped with Lowes folding completely. However, it didn’t seem like much of an experiment. If they don’t stock the tools in stores it seems risky to buy them sight-unseen when much of the production was off-shored.
A Chinese or Taiwanese-produced version of the USA tools still could have been good. The chatter about the new tools was mostly negative though – and I’m not sure if that’s because they were genuinely bad or just a consequence of hurt feelings from the brand selling to Great Star and mostly shuttering US production. I would have liked to see them for myself.
SK pricing for the USA-made tools always seemed extreme. They weren’t even competitive with Proto, which is pretty exorbitant here in Canada – especially compared with Williams’ USA-made line. Farming out production seemed inevitable.
Cruiser Dude
I live in the Caribbean. Few years ago I went to store that sell tools for tire repair shops. Then I realized they carried SK tools ( a licensed SK retailer). I ask the the clerk about prices and he make a funny face expression and proceeding to give the price of a basic set of metric spanner…I was shocked: it was more expensive than Proto and Snap On. The clerk toll me : “I been working 12 years in this store and never been able to sell a single tool set of SK tool. They’re been here for years”
David
120 years from now some mechanic in the desert will trade a set of these rare collectibles to spaceborn bounty hunters so he can get his stolen, golden android robot back. The rarest of the rare.
Ray
Back in a galaxy far far away (the late 90’s to be specific) when Lowes was heavily promoting the new Kobalt product, most of the hand tools were made under contract by Snap on. I only know this because I took a tour of a socket/extension production facility outside of Milwaukee. During the tour, the guide took a socket out of a bin as it was exiting the forging process. The socket was embossed with the Kobalt name. I asked some questions and was told that this was a line of tools made for Lowes stores & except for the plating process & the name, it was the same tool as Snap on. I went to my local Lowes store and bought a bunch of them.
Of course we are now a long way from there and most things that we used to depend on have changed. Almost any hand tool That is considered affordable is foreign made garbage, and premium tool truck brands require a mortgage loan to buy. It’s a shame that SK has gone that way also.
I’ll hang on to most of my US made tools and pass them on to a worthy soul when I no longer need them.
Jim Felt
I’m still waiting for the day I’ll actually break a US made Craftsman socket or wrench and finally need to try to get my long promised Sears “replacement for life” exchange…
Tom Potter
I bought a 7/16″ combination wrench off the Snap-on truck. It cost over $30.
K Luiten
I have a set of the Kobalt pass-thru sockets that I always suspected were Snap-On. Have served me regularly for over 16 years now.
Greg
I bought a ratchet from Lowe’s and to exchange it it took me 5 visits to store it wasn’t in stock .second time (it’s 4 year period) I was7 times still not in stock and cashier register my tool so I cannot get money back . So long story short I’m not buying tools from store. No customer support whatever.
Paul Hacker
Many tools you can get replaced by going online to the manufacturer on a recent project I broke 5 sockets ..one Sk … 2 craftsman .. one mac and one snap on contacted each company . .. had to take photos of the broken sockets each one was replaced within 2 weeks time ..
Scotty
I never saw them at any Lowe’s in the Orlando Metro area. Not once
Chris
Maybe greatstar will take the loss and sell off SK back to an American company who will rebuild the brand.
Joe E.
Well, we can certainly rule out Stanley Black & Decker.
PW
That seems unlikely. If their US production facilities are gone, what would be of interest to a US company that has the necessary experience with forged tools? A brand few know, and is now tarnished? Tool designs that were largely – let’s be honest – quite outdated?
The few companies who could do such a thing (Wright, Snap-on, etc) have their own brands, designs, and production facilities. I’d think they’d rather entice the few disenchanted SK customers to buy into their existing product lines.
There’s probably a reason SK bounced between several corporate owners already before landing with Great Star. They unfortunately just did not have a great business going.
It’s sad because I liked some of their tools. But they were expensive for what they were, had poor brand name recognition, limited distribution, and seemed to have constant QC struggles in recent years.
Stuart
Unfortunately, I think you’re right.
Stuart
Which brand?
From what I’m told, they still have USA manufacturing for ratchets at unspecified volume, but that’s it.
Brand names are important, but mean nothing if there’s no place to sell it.
I would say that Home Depot, Lowe’s, and Harbor Freight are the biggest tool retailers.
Home Depot has been trying to sell Gearwrench. Husky is their everyday brand, and Milwaukee makes a highly successful seasonal appearances, with some everyday SKUs.
Lowe’s has Craftsman and Kobalt. There’s room for SK, but the big question is whether the tools will sell to justify investment by Lowe’s or SK. Given that SKUs were apparently removed from their online catalog, I’d say probably not.
Craftsman’s V-series line is excellent, but has yet to appear at Lowe’s stores.
Greatstar purchased SK partly for the name, but also for the IP – I’m guessing “X-frame” and similar.
Nobody is putting money into rebuilding SK infrastructure from the ground up. Would you?
DC
I have many USA-made Ideal-SK sockets, wrenches, screwdrivers and pliers in my tool box and they sit next to my USA-made Snap-ons. After SK got sold to China I never went to them.
Mike
My biggest issue is the push for SK to be priced like it’s on a tool truck, but they seem to be meeting the same quality as GearWrench. I’m not paying $200+ for a 14pc socket and ratchet set that doesn’t meet the same quality as a truck tool. The revival of SK was quietly billed as an intermediate brand, better than Craftsman but cheaper then GW, and within a few months they bloomed prices so high that opting for BluePoint sets was financially a better choice.
If GreatStar gets their pricing right I’ll buy them, but at current prices it’s just not worth it.
Ken
Tried to warranty a cpl sockets from SK after months of waiting I just bought another brand. Never again.
Paul Udstrand
The quality SK we knew and some of us loved is gone. I know Stuart keeps saying that they’re making some ratchets somewhere in the US but I doubt it. It looks like the new round-head ratchets are a completely different design, although kind of unique. They can’t be USA made however if they’re selling them at half the price. It looks to me like they’re just selling off left over US merch if they have it, and you can tell buy the price. Some combination wrench sets and X-Frame wrenches are priced for hundreds of dollars (Old USA inventory) and some are priced as less than $60. We simply cannot expect the same level of quality that we used to get for hundreds of dollars, although that doesn’t mean SK has become junk.
Stuart
An SK manager told me a few months ago that they reestablished USA production here, at least for [select?] ratchets, but I wasn’t provided with any info or context outside of that.
Doug Peters
I still got some older Sk sockets along with my usa made craftsman sockets. Always seemed that the Sk had a tighter grip on fasteners. Now that it’s a greatstar company no way will i purchase china or twain hand tools. After purchasing some snap on sockets, ratchets and flank drive wrench’s Id say spend the extra coin if possible.