B&D urban myth?

[Nick.]

black and decker must have had manufacturing plant in the UK as I've had a b and d angle grinder for many many years and its second hand!
says made in England.

Spennymoor Johnny - At one point I'm sure they were producing motors / injection moulding / castings etc. And they had 2,000 or so staff in the peak days.

 

[powertools]

I can remember the days when my farther would spend 1/2 hour making a small hole in a brick wall with a rawlplug punch and hammer. Black and Decker started advertising electric drills for mail order in the national press and that was the beginning of power tools for the diy user, I think for that we owe them a lot.
My power tool woodworking hobby started with a Stanley Bridges drill and a full set of accessories it for the first time many tools that were out of reach of the hobby user became affordable.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Half an hour???? When I were a lad ...

Try getting star drills into granite lintels.

 

[Oraclebhoy]

All companies do this. They make money on selling or fixing. If it lasts forever they cut there own throat. Ie. my in-law is a head exec at General Motors. All parts in a car must last 97 percent of the time 6 months past warranty. After that they want it to fail as they make money in parts not the whole new car. If a part is indestructible they will not use it. It is re tooled so it will fall into those parameters and fail.

So true. My mum had a washing machine that she bought in 85, I took ownership of that machine in 93 and until I moved house in 2001 that machine never let me down. Had to replace a plastic door handle which my friend snapped off forcing the door open to retrieve the credit card in her jeans pocket.
It was a solid machine, a roommate had a habit of not emptying his pockets so ever couple of months it would start to make a strange noise, I would take the cover off and open the pump to retrieve coins/keys/screws etc. Just put it back together and off it went.
If it was built like my current machine the pump would have been replaced numerous times.

 

[stevek]

I can remember the days when I belted holes into concrete with a Rawlplug tool and club hammer, mostly for Pipe Clips so you could be doing a dozen or so at a time, surpriseingly effective in fact, and this was whilst working for a biggish firm,,never seen an electric drill, the rawlplug tool and the funny brown fibre plugs were allways in the big bag full of Stillsons and stuff that we carted about London on the bus,,,where we lived in north london a big building company had there yard just by us, their guys had handcarts, two very large wheels, maybe 4ft high and a long shaft with a crosspiece handle which they just pushed from job to job when they were local, they also did a lot of stonework and had a big stone saw in the yard,,I dont suppose they had much in the way of powertools! Mind you there was always two of them, I guess the tradesman and his mate,,the mate was the powertool! I should add that this was in the early sixties,,,it sounds like the 1860s.

 

[dannyr]

I have a couple of amateur-type B&D (720 and other lost its label) drills bought in the 1970s and about 1988 - both bashed around, left clogged with dust for weeks while using, much hammer- drilling into stone and also one used on a fixed base as a grinder, sometimes on and off for hours on end. Had to replace brushes once or twice (easy), change a switch, grease and cables (the rubber lead-through doesn't last) - the Jacobs chucks are a bit worn, the hammer action is not as efficient as an ultra-cheapo red-devil SDS I have (not used much but seems to keep going) - and a Bosch seemed a slightly better drill but lasted a week beyond its warrantee when a nylon bush melted.

At least well into this century, B&D not only assembled but also made many of the parts in this country - I worked until 2010 for a company which heat-treated a lot for them , in Sheffield, Rotherham and Manchester-Liverpool region.

 

[Moriwaki]

I read a similar shockingly low life expectancy of the drills back in the 80's....cannot remember the source.

it could have just repeating urban mythololgy too.

Eric

I remember trading one of the old orange ones for a corded Black one with a 15mm 1/2 “Chuck in a actual B & D shop in Middlesbrough.... still got it... but it’s been retired from front line duties for quite some time, it still works

 

[JimB]

I have a B&D mechanical 2 speed non hammer drill bought in 1975 (just after buying first house) and it's still going strong. I've no idea how many hours use it has had but I did have it drilling out a HT bolt for an hour and a half continously. It's still my go to drill when I need mains power. If it dies I will replace it with the same model my dad bought at the same time which is still working too. From memory they were on offer in Debenhams in Sheffield, so both bought one.

I bought one in Leeds around the same time or a few years earlier and it's still in use here in Australia.

 

[dzj]

I bough a B&D 500W drill in the early 90s. Black shell casing.
It was used a lot on a daily basis and paid for itself many times over.
Changed the brushes a couple of times, bearings twice, chuck, cable, switch...
Like Trigger's broom.

 

[MorrisWoodman12]

Much like @Mickjay I bought a B&D drill in 1972 ish but the hammer version. A collar in the gearbox broke after about 3years. Used the lathe in our design/model shop (I'm electronic not mechy) to make a new one + a spare and the mechy brains to tell me how to case harden it. It's still going strong although not used so often since buying a Bosch battery drill 3 years ago. 48 years! Not bad. I think I've had my monies worth.

 

[Jacob]

....... and Decker started advertising electric drills for mail order in the national press and that was the beginning of power tools for the diy user, I think for that we owe them a lot.
.....

Exchange and Mart. Bed time reading for me, while my wife flipped through the Green Shield Stamps catalogue.

 

[Andy]

A bought a B&D drill in the mid 80s, it died on me about 5 years ago after nearly 30 years of sometimes heavy use. I think my dad is still using his B&D that he bought some time before me, I seem to remember he had it when we were kids and I think it is still going. I have a bosch now, I'm not sure I would trust it to last as long.

 

[wallace]

Spennymoor Johnny - At one point I'm sure they were producing motors / injection moulding / castings etc. And they had 2,000 or so staff in the peak days.

The spennymoor site was 2min walk from my house, it boasted the biggest production line in the world at one point.
Like everything else production went to poland and houses built on the site. all that is left is a repair facilty and I think an off shoot of B&D, 'minicraft' was taken over by some managers.
Funny story, the woman who did the assembly would be searched before leaving at the end of shift, so they would hide components in their knickers and assemble stuff at home.

 

[HamsterJam]

I bought a project house and a Bosch green hammer drill in the 80s. It was my first power tool and it lasted a bit over five years before it went up in smoke but it did a lot of work in that time. I bought an Hitachi to replace it which is still my go to corded drill

 

[Simon89]

I would be inclined to think tools are designed to last a minimum period rather than fail after a certain point.

Perhaps there has to be a certain level of responsibility put on the buyer. Never before have we had so much choice, information and feedback on Items we buy. There is still the option to spend a bit more and get a lot more. I think Companies are just producing products that fit the throwaway culture that their customers clearly value.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Exchange and Mart. Bed time reading for me, while my wife flipped through the Green Shield Stamps catalogue.

Green Shield stamps bought my first tools, along with cigarette coupons - a local second hand dealer bought them for 2/- a hundred and sold them for 2/6. Some good tools worked out half the price they were in the shops.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Funny story, the woman who did the assembly would be searched before leaving at the end of shift, so they would hide components in their knickers and assemble stuff at home.

A friend years ago reckoned he could build us a Sea King helicopter by similar methods, courtesy of RNAS Culdrose.

 

[Terry - Somerset]

There is a clear divide between professional (and serious hobby users), and average DIY.

For the former, tool failures are lost money + tool replacement. Paying for reliability, service life and spares back-up makes good sense.

DIY usage is far less. Large project may be a new kitchen, possibly only every 5+ years. Tools may be unused for weeks or months, then used occassionally for minor things - fit a few shelves, put up curtain rail, fix external lighting, screw down squeaky floorboards etc etc.

For a DIYer a 3 hour usage life may well be 5+ years between replacements.

I doubt it is possible to design tools with precisely 3 hour lives, but companies will have an informed view on how individual components are likely to perform - they will not want failures within warranty or soon afterwards.

 

[Jacob]

A friend years ago reckoned he could build us a Sea King helicopter by similar methods, courtesy of RNAS Culdrose.

Lot of people I grew up with ended up at Royce's (Rolls Royce Derby). They were good for bits n bobs. Never quite got an RB211 together but I remember my BSA M21 cylinder being taken in for removal of broken cylinder head bolts, dissolved by a magical RR electrolytic process.

 

[Droogs]

i remember a sudden spate of lots of very sparklly silver motorbikes being used by people in rosyth dockyard shortly before they closed the chroming shop