I came across a sponsored post by SK Tools on Facebook, which celebrates their 100 years of blood, sweat, and gears.
Here’s the caption that goes along with the image shown above, posted on June 7th, 2021:
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SK Tools manufactures quality tools for the American technician. From the original Round-Headed Ratchet to the SK X-FRAME® Ratcheting Wrench, we’ve been innovating for American professionals since day one.
Piling on top of many comments left in response to some of their other posts, SK Tools is facing a heap of harsh backlash right now.
First, there have been a lot of recent complaints about delays. Orders aren’t being shipped out fast enough for many of the vocal customers, and some are waiting on responses regarding warranty requests and other types of communications.
Here are some of the recent comments from SK Tools’ customers and fans:
Ryan: Taking a long time to process my order. TEKTON would have shipped my order by now.
Marcus: You people wasted no time in processing my credit card payment. If you can’t ship in a timely manner, please cancel my order so I can get the adapter I need elsewhere. I needed that piece days ago.
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Nino: Hey SK I’m not asking for a lot here but can you please please ship my order!
Tim: Numerous phone calls and emails. No reply. Double billed. Horrible horrible customer service.
Dillon: I understand that but you should have got caught up on all the orders from the past month. I been waiting patiently for 3 weeks. Tekton always ships same day or the next at the latest.
Emery: Disappointed in SK right now in your delivery service and can’t even get a reply from customer service.
Timothy: good. but why haven’t i got my wrench i ordered 3/4 months ago
We’re still in a pandemic, and I have experienced shipping and communications delays from a lot of brands and retailers, and so I’d cut SK some slack here. But I would also hope to have seen these concerns and complaints addressed by SK’s social media reps.
The second type of backlash has to do SK Hand Tool’s sale to GreatStar Tools, a subsidiary of China-based Hangzhou GreatStar Industrial.
Here’s SK’s post if you want to see it for yourself.
This one fan’s comment sums up what a lot of SK Tool fans are feeling:
100 years and then you sold yourself to China
But here’s the thing – Hangzhou GreatStar Industrial is a publicly-traded company. Which means YOU could own a piece of the company. I don’t quite see this as SK Hand Tools “selling out to China.”
There are actually quite a few tool brands and companies that are owned by public and privately owned companies based in China.
See Also: How Many USA Shop Vacuum Brands are Owned By American and Foreign Companies?
Personally, I think it’s too soon to make any predictions or worry about SK Tools’ direction.
Regardless as to where a publicly-traded company is headquartered, it’s the leadership and direction that matters.
Consider Milwaukee Tool, which has been constantly expanding their USA efforts and also directing money to grow their USA-based tool brand acquisitions. They are owned by a publicly traded company that’s based in China, but have also been pouring money into the US and supporting an increasing number of jobs across a breadth of categories. Milwaukee is set to open a new USA-based manufacturing facility in 2022, and this is on top of another new factory that is set to start making hand tools.
We’ve got to wait and see what happens, and judge SK and GreatStar on what they do – or don’t do – with the brand.
GreatStar has not yet released any details about their plans for SK Hand Tools. Based on their reticence surrounding other recent acquisitions, they probably won’t share much publicly here either, but SK is also a much higher profile tool brand.
SK has a lot of very passionate customers, and it’s important to remember that although we’re not privy to details, there are definitely reasons behind Ideal’s sale of the brand to GreatStar.
Ideal Industries shut down Western Forge in early 2020. Would anyone have wished the same to happen to SK?
Another thing to remember is that this isn’t something that SK Tools has done, these are changes being done to SK.
Part of me is holding onto optimism that GreatStar will support SK’s USA-based footprint and production efforts, but the other part is bracing for disappointment. We don’t know what the situation has been for the tool brand, but there are reasons why Ideal Industries closed Western Forge and was seeking to sell SK after 11 years of ownership.
It will be interesting to see what happens.
ONR
So now I’m wondering if I should order anything from them or not. 🤔
Stuart
From a retailer that has in-stock merchandise? I would, but I wouldn’t consider the warranty.
From SK direct? You can try and always cancel if the delays are too long. And if they aren’t responsive, that’s what paper trail and credit card disputes are for.
There’s a lot of uncertainty right now, and if that stresses you out, there are enough competitive brands to consider.
Edgardo
While my comment has NOTHING and I repeat NOTHING to do with politics at all, I merely want to ask one simple neutral question. Why is it so surprising other Americans of ALL walks of are rightfully so angered to see their fellow Americans lose their jobs due to outsourcing of domestic manufacturing overseas?
This is very easy potentially to say “eh who cares, better them than me.” until this happens to you. I’ve been there and I’ve seen this happen to everyday, good hard working Americans a well.
Bluntly put instead of worshiping these multi millionaire athletes, celebrities, musicians or “entertainers”, this is high time those in the domestic manufacturing side, police, firefighters, veterans and various tradesmen/tradeswomen these industries and individuals receive the praise for actually doing REAL work that has tangible results.
Stuart
In this case, have there been any closures or jobs lost so far? I’ve been looking but haven’t seen any news about it.
There have been countless stories about people treating restaurant staff extremely poorly and also tipping low (if at all) due to restaurants having to enforce social distancing, occupancy, or masking regulations. If people can be so callous to workers that largely depend on tips to earn a living wage, how much are they going to think about those in domestic manufacturing or civil service?
I have spoken with many tool brands over the years, and I’ve asked why they couldn’t or wouldn’t make certain tools here in the USA. Sometimes there are very good reasons, but a lot of the time it also comes down to what shoppers are willing to buy.
This is not an easy topic, and it often gets very political and very fast.
Once infrastructure and know-how are gone, they’re usually gone for good and don’t come back, and that’s a very dangerous thing to happen.
fred
Economic transitions are never easy and hardly pleasant for those caught up the the shifts. What our job market will look like in 10, 20 or 50 years is unknown – but it will undoubtedly be different. If you were a TV repairman in the 1950’s you probably thought you were in a up and coming field. If you were a milkman – you were likely grumbling about supermarkets taking your job away. Today it looks like good paying manufacturing jobs in the USA are continuing to decline – but my ex compatriots tell me that its near impossible to hire new trained plumbers or carpenters (also well paying). So while I’m still optimistic about our future job market – I can feel for the hardships and dislocations that the loss of manufacturing is causing. My take is that we just need to keep reinventing ourselves and rather than grumble about the past – figure out what we do best and put together a plan forward.
Farid
Couldn’t agree more. It is disheartening to hear complaints about disappearing jobs (jobs disappearing are not a good thing), but sometime the same ones complaining are the ones blocking new technologies and jobs.
There was plan to convert the Rustbelt manufacturing area into the new renewable manufacturing hub. A few years ago, a German company wanted to build a factory in Ohio for wind turbine manufacturing with thousands of high paying jobs. Politicians put up barriers and the deal was killed. Now, our state politicians are adding more bills that, not only put barriers, but basically block installation and development of green energy. Meanwhile, half of the politicians lament that new rules could lead to 10,000 jobs losses in oil industry or 15,000 jobs loss in coal industry. Just for perspective, JCPenny had 110,000 employees about 5 years ago (that’s about 3/4 the total number of oil and gas employees in the us, and there many more more that are much bigger) . You won’t hear anybody is talking about that (and thank you, Stuart, for mentioning restaurant staff, not to mention doctors and especially nurses).
I buy locally made tools whenever I can, especially if they are better, and I do not support losing our knowledge and manufacturing capability (my company almost went through that twice). But, on the other hand, I see we are very much stuck in an old mind frame and wasting big opportunities, missing out on future technologies and ensuring continued decline of good paying jobs. The rest of the world moves on with or without us, Wrapping oneself with the flag and making decisions based on tilted talking points is not enough to bring back jobs.
Rx9
I don’t watch cable or network television anymore. Life is better without celebrity worship, which is fake anyway, because there are literally thousands of actors, musicians, and other entertainers who are just as talented as the A-listers (if not more). I am increasingly not alone on this anti-celebrity mentality and I highly suspect we are part of a silent yet significant fraction of the population. That’s one reason blogs like this are so popular – they’re a welcome break from the celebrity hype machine.
Americans being angry at seeing jobs and livelihoods disappearing is only surprising if you still believe that the offshoring is done in good faith.
MM
The Celebrity Worship angle is troubling, not just for the reasons that you brought up (and Brian below), but also because it seems that a great many people are turning to these celebrities for information on legal matters, politics, and so on. Looking up to an actor or actress or sports star is one thing, but when people listen to them for medical advice, political opinions, and so forth then things really begin to fall apart. Why would I listen to a musician for medical advice instead of a doctor? Yet when a random celebrity comments on the subject they get more re-tweets than when a doctor does. Some actor’s speculation about the Surfside condo collapse in FL gets more attention than that of engineers and architects…..
Personally I’m not very vocal about my position but I haven’t had any sort of television service since roughly 2001, and even then I only had it because it was required for my cable modem for internet. I think the last movie I saw was in 2006. I don’t even know how to use twitter or instagram.
Peter
I do not understand the notion that being a celebrity etc. somewhat disqualifies you to have an informed opinion or something worth listening to say.
Besides all that happened before with Elvis, Beatles and such.
Some of them are doing a lot of good things.
MM
I did not mean to imply that being a celebrity necessarily undermines one’s credibility. My complaint is when some people choose to listen to celebrities at the exclusion of experts, particularly with respect to topics that the celebrity is likely not well educated in. I also think that everyone is entitled to their opinion, so the notion that society respects a celebrity’s opinion more than their friend or neighbor’s–or worse yet, an expert’s–seems strange to me.
Many celebrities do indeed do fantastic things for society and contribute to noble causes. But sadly they are vastly outnumbered by those who talk out their posterior on topics they do not understand.
Brian
Because we have become a vain shallow society, and those who work with their hands and have varying levels of support for domestic products are a minority.
Those that support the spoiled phony famous people hocking all their third world made junk which supports their insanely lavish lifestyle is what many kids aspire to achieve some day.
Our society is doomed unless there are android robots to do all these peoples chores in 20 years, cause very few young people can do anything for themselves and there will not be enough tradesmen to support the masses.
I like SK, and with Stuart on a wait and see how this turns out.
Al
It’s OK for brands to die. Look at the brands that are being used as labels for some other company’s goods: Kodak, Circuit City, Sharper Image, Westinghouse, Motorola, …the list goes on.
The U.S. government stopped the sale of Hummer intellectual property (including designs) to a company in China who made vehicles for industrial and government customers.
But, the companies going bankrupt have two final sources of cash, and their controllers/liquidators must recover all the money they can:
1. brand name, logos, and other identifiers, which can be rented/licensed or sold outright
2. customer data. I’ve watched so many bid requests for companies like Papyrus, Robert Talbott, Stein Mart, Shop-Vac, Modell’s , Four Seasons restaurant, and a ton of clothing brands.
Modell’s sporting goods wanted $1.9MM.
Shop-Vac starting bid was around $4..3MM.
At least Shop-Vac was including old inventory.
But, why not let the brand die? What’s wrong with that?
Stuart
Once a brand is lost, jobs, infrastructure, and know-how goes with them.
A brand without any of that is a shell, but there have been some success stories.
That’s the frustrating part and why fans of the brand are unhappy. Is the brand as they know it done-for?
Tom D
It would be an interesting “poison pill” to put in a company’s bylaws – that the brand is held by a non-profit and cannot be sold, only dissolved.
Mike (the other one)
Maybe the real villain here is Ideal, who closed down the Pratt-Read plant and moved production to their Sycamore, then closed Western Forge, and did basically nothing to grow SK.
Jaycob P.
I agree. People keep blaming China, but China didn’t sell out to themselves.
MM
There is a lot of blame to go around, generally speaking:
Could Ideal have done more with the SK brand in terms of investing in the brand, R&D for new tools, dealer networks, customer service, etc?
Could corporate buyers have chosen to put more US brands on the shelf compared to imports?
Could customers have chosen US brands over imports?
Yes to all of these questions.
I think it’s premature to worry too much. We don’t know what, if any, jobs will be lost or what Great Star plans to do with the brand. But I don’t fault people for worrying about what might happen since it’s easy to see that SK could go the same route as many brands before.
Harry
SK has come and gone more than a few times in my lifetime. However, I feel they have no one to blame but, themselves. Quality control issues with their tools. Lack of new product releases, an almost nonexistent dealer network. Time will tell how this shakes out.
Ex_dtw2003
Nothing is truly private in China and you invest their at your own risk. Risk far beyond the accepted investment risk associated with free actually free markets. Exhibit A: Hong Kong.
fred
I suspect that sooner or later Taiwan will be next – unless the world is willing to go to war over it.
Diplomatic Immunity
>unless the world is willing to go to war over it
Oh there will be. Taiwan’s chip manufacturing is too valuable. We’re already in an economic and information war with the CCP. Only a matter of time before it enters full cyber and then kinetic.
Flotsam
I agree with your assessment Stuart, wait and see. I’m not sure Great Star really appreciates that there are people that really want US made products. But people vote with their wallets and i don’t see foreign sourced brands hurting for customers.
I’m an SK fan, but that alone won’t keep a business running.
Neighbor Joe
Looking like Ideal Industries divestment in broad selection of handtools to focus solely on electricians tools to compete against Klein. Doing more with less? Time will tell. Their fortunes were always tied to Sears Craftsman. When Sears crashed and burned and the Home Depot contract limited to only acetate screw drivers, it became not such an ideal situation for Ideal Industries. Too much of the tool market taken up by cheaply sourced Chinese tools. SK is an excellent product with a long history. Hoping this is no the end but suspect they will fall victim to the trend.
Nathan
Yes I think a few people forget that SK has died on the vine before. And I think the biggest issue is they didn’t really make the things people have gravitated to. Their round head ratchet while good and strong – it too big in today’s automotive world. it’s the reason the pear head has become king. They took too long getting their tooth count up. the new DT hardware for the ratchets with an 80tooth 3/8 drive is very nice. but a Tekton 90tooth is smaller, so is the snap on 88 or the Mac. when it comes to fitment in an engine bay.
where is there ratcheting wrenches – oh the X frame it’s bigger in some places than anyone elses ratcheting combo wrench. people already had the gear wrenches, etc etc. OK so it’s got alot of tooth engagement and strong as hell – it was but not reversible, no flex head, no stubby. I know a guy that on his cart is 3 sets of ratcheting metric wrenches. straight long patter, stubby, and flex head.
I love my SK tools that I have – I still say they made one of the best flare nut wrenches on the market. Never broke one – never rounded a fitting.
More avaialblity of the German and Japanese tools – also killed them.
Outside of that and not to get to political. yes it’s a little better than shutting the doors. but even if Sk sticks around all the profits go to China investors. Just like Milwaukee stuff. Ok they kept the plant open in the US – but they only make so much. How much Chinese and offshore made products has great star pushed over here without someone else’s name on them? How many tax offsets do they get?
I can’t believe I’m saying this but I am holding out hope SBD gets off their laurels and kicks in more USA made hand tools in the craftsman line or even if they branded them Dewalt. There are a lot of MAC tool clones that should be on shelves.
Gary
“But here’s the thing – Hangzhou GreatStar Industrial is a publicly-traded company. Which means YOU could own a piece of the company. I don’t quite see this as SK Hand Tools ‘selling out to China.'”
THIS x100! If we can shed the knee-jerk hypersensitivity and instead focus on rational arguments, we might consider:
1) It appears there were NO COMPETING BUYERS, American, Chinese, or otherwise;
2) There is now ample evidence that buying a premium tool brand and cheapening the quality is a BAD strategy to achieve a return on capital employed; and
3) Any American can buy the stock and participate in the company’s future – whether it be the brand’s revival, demise, or whatever.
Bill
To me, publicly traded means nothing. Guys in China are making the decisions. If they are making the right decisions, great. If production switches over to china, they will suffer.
Greg
I think we need government help where we give any business tax breaks for percentage of USA made good sold. Imagine walking in Home Depot and seeing Wright tools or other USA made tools lines.
MM
In my opinion one of the major reasons why so many American tool manufacturers have been going out of business is because of government policies which often masquerade as “help”. I am not being partisan here, the problems go back decades and have come from both sides of the political fence. The more government hoops a company has to jump through and red tape they have to deal with the more its products end up costing.
“Tax breaks” are nice, but what would be better yet is to walk back decades of bad policy to once again allow American industry to thrive. The government doesn’t need to actively do anything to help, rather it needs to stop doing things that hurt and pay a lot more attention to unintended consequences of its decisions.
Unions are another part of the problem. They have done much good in the past, but at the same time it’s also possible for the pendulum to swing too far and find that the union has destroyed the business whose workers it originally meant to protect.
Rx9
Do you know who Larry Fink is? Have you ever heard of BlackRock capital?
The more you learn about him and his ilk, the more you understand about this country’s economic situation.
Diplomatic Immunity
It’s called tariffs. Just push for tariffs on Chinese goods and then when people complain about costs going up point them to the Federal Reserve printing money endlessly.
Rx9
Correct. The money printing is also a good reason why the increase in national productivity and wealth over the past few decades has largely accrued only to the ultra-high-net-worth class. The more assets you hold, the more deflation is a threat to your worth, so that is never allowed to happen. Most people understand taxes, and reflexively balk at them, so they aren’t increased to fund government largesse. Money printing on the other hand, allows you to effectively tax the population heavily without the majority of them comprehending it. No actual taxes are levied, but the real value of peoples earnings and savings is stolen away by the truckload.
loup68
One of our major problems is that younger people do not want to work hard or get their hands dirty. I saw this fifteen years ago in our automotive parts plant first hand.
Americans only want to buy cheap junk now. No one now a days cares if a product is made in USA anymore! This is wrong! Young people are astonished if you tell them that we made products for the whole world in the past. They can’t believe it.
The building trades have been trying desperately to get new workers for a few years now as our older WORKERS retire.
In the automotive restoration parts business, the current products available are from overseas and are an expensive joke. Nothing fits right, looks the same, and the electrical components like headlight switches and power window switches fail after a very short while. So do vacuum components. Now our lone older car glass manufacturing company is quitting making older classic car glass. The Asian glass is not up to snuff I am told.
We are loosing our ability to make any products here. Look around you, my floss comes from France and so does Bob Evan’s current salt and pepper shakers!
What do we make here anymore I ask you?
My wife say’s we make two things in America anymore, burgers and babies!!!
Kentucky fan
The US still produces a huge amount of stuff matter of factly almost as much as China produces. The difference now is that we consume so much stuff that our production can’t keep up with demand.
Nathan
well hold on were there other buyers? How would we know? that’s not publicly disclosed information unless the sale goes though. Where there other buyers that were outbid, perhaps.
meanwhile yes I agree let’s wait a year and see what happens but I don’t know of anything good that has come out of the Great Star buyouts of the past. Perhaps I have missed one or 2.
Chris
I totally get that this is all ideal industries fault. But wouldn’t SK have some sort of say in to whom they’re being sold to? I wouldn’t care as much if SK was sold to a European company maybe a Japanese company.
Somewhere in a parallel universe, SK was sold to snap on. I wonder how that would play out. Just hypothetically, would Snap On have been a good buyer for SK? Snap On has many industrial brands including Williams, bahco and many others. Would SK have been a good fit?
Super curious to what you guys think about it.
Jim Felt
We simply can’t know but we certainly can presume all of their competitors (US based and the rest of the tool world) knew of this availability long before we the public did.
Hence wouldn’t it be safe to imagine none of them offered enough to Ideal to actually acquire the brand? AKA lousy fit? Or?
John S.
Too much politics in this comment section, blaming unions for managements failures etc. I’m not going there.
Great star made some decent tools for Craftsman, hopefully they do the same with S-K and hopefully plow some money into production and grow the brand. They’ve collected a stable of names, I wish them success & hope they keep the existing lines here. Time will tell.
Brent
SK has always been a brand that mechanics in the know, know their round head fine-tooth ratchet was the only fine tooth ratchet for half a century . Marketed was not needed as mechanics talk tools but in the 2ks they should have marketed to the prosumer who wants better than Craftsman but do not need the very inflated ego priced tool truck brands that do not care if a prosumer wants to purchase.
Will
I really don’t think it’s a matter of “young people don’t want to get their hands dirty.” It’s more a matter of those dirty jobs don’t pay well enough anymore.
I’m in Kansas City, and unless you’re lucky enough to get a spot in one of the trade apprenticeship programs you’re looking at $15 to $16 per hour for trade work unless you already have experience. Most of the plumbing companies here pay a base (if you’re lucky) of $400 per week plus commission and they only want already-trained plumbers. Many only pay on commission. Unless you’re a great salesperson that simply isn’t enough.
On top of that, most warehouses and even some of the box stores such as Menards are now offering $16 plus to start. Are you gonna break your back all day in the elements or work in air conditioning stocking shelves for the same pay?
Until non-union trades stop paying effectively minimum wage they’re not going to attract the amount of workers they need.
Ace1119
Everything about great star purchasing SK is disheartening to me. I inherited most of my SK tools from my grandfather so most of them are probably 40 plus years old and still in beautiful condition. The chrome is absolutely fantastic even after my years of abuse. And to the best of my knowledge the tools I have purchased from SK in the past years have proved the same. In regards to the shipping issues I had to warranty my 3/8 swivel head ratchet in the height of the pandemic and SK still managed to take my call and overnight the required parts. I see no reason other than the ownership change to blame for the delay in shipping. My main worry is that great star will push for SK to produce a cheaper, lower quality products to be sold to your average consumer. Unfortunately nowadays the average consumer doesn’t buy tools because the average consumer doesn’t fix things; they just replace it or pay someone else to replace it. The paradigm shift between my grandfather’s generation and my generation has nearly made ownership of quality tools unnecessary for anyone not working a trade. I find it sad that that a company like SK can’t sustain itself in the American market alone.
John U IBEW
Ive watched manufacturers, one after another make these same changes. They bought the name. Just like Ideal, Ideal tools along with Klein have been pushing more of their tools to offshore over the past 20 years or moving production to places with low standards of living and low wages. It only makes it worse and in the short term raises the margins. Then the professionals like myself stop buying it. Race to the bottom. Now they can pay crap wages and be a bigger problem than a solution. Ideal and Klein will be gone in time soon as well. You can’t compete with the third world or a world whose government owns every stick of steel in the yard and barrel of oil on the rack. Keep living better and saving money till the whole country is working for nothing.
David McPherson
I became a Snap on Tool Dealer in 1956 when Cleveland was 7th largest city in USA. Business in Cleveland was booming, discount structure was not so good. 25 percent on hand tools, 20 percent on electronic timing lights, meters and 15 percent on power tools, stayed with them 8 years Went to Mac Tools where we bought hand tools from Factory at 40 percent and Allied products from Mac Allied Tallmadge, Ohio at 30 percent and retail prices quite a bit lower than Snap on,. But due to Greed and mismanagement Mac failed,. Then I became an Independent Tool Distributor and when I retired I had been in business total of 50 years. I would say that Greed and dishonesty has pretty taken over the USA and we are at this point because of Greed and Dishonesty
Jeffrey
I do not think that I have ever bought a single SK tool new.
My whole life, SK has had a terrible distribution system.
Somehow, I have a metric-shit-ton of SK. I paid pennies on the dollar for it (garage sales, estate sales, vintage NOS).
SK has made buying from them a pain in the ass, and for some reason I never have.
A Rautio
I believe it started in October of 21 when we had to break down, clean, load onto trucks and ship them to Pennsylvania for Greatstar. Along with packing everything up and shipping to Pennsylvania, that pretty much slowed down the inventory and shipping that you may be having problems with now. I’m pretty sure once Greatstar gets set up in Pennsylvania and gets the manufacturing going, your orders will be filled.
Ideal industries in Sycamore, Illinois owned SK hand tool company and sold it to Greatstar tools. Greatstar will keep the SK hand tool brand name. Yes, Greatstar is headquartered in China! Personally, I’m not very happy about it, but hope that Greatstar will still build a wonderful hand tool!
Lou
Three years later, manufacturing offshored and quality went down the toilet. SK is dead.