Old grump been on the planet too long

[ohiofarmer 3,358]

  My county seat is a 2500 or so population. We have Harbor Freight Rural King Tractor Supply Ace Hardware ,and Lowe's and two plumbing supply houses and electrical supply as well. 

   All I needed was a simple chuck key and to preferably also have the Milwaukee rubber key retainer. Rural King had none and does not stock them. Great prices on my two batteries I needed for the Mighty Cummins as I paid less than one Toyota battery. Off to Ace I went, but they didn't have a key big enough for a half inch Jacobs.. Tractor Supply only had a 4 way at twelve dollars. In fact, the out of stock at Ace was ten just for a single key. Weren't these keys like three bucks a few years ago?

     I guess these days all they have is battery drills with keyless chucks.Rural King and Ace are Milwaukee dealers and neither stocked corded drills.

   I suppose the electrical and plumbing supply houses would still have corded Milwaukee drills simply because of the mighty Hole Hawg used in the trades, but who knows as they are closed when I was shopping. The bigger question is where are all the men? Big men with big tools with the strength to handle them. Those wimpy keyless chucks really don't tighten enough for some of the stuff I use.

   So I finally did buy a four way from Harbor Freight. At least they still sell about any corded drill at any strength an average guy might need ...Hole Hawg being the exception. 

  Now I do own the Milwaukee 18 volt  drill and driver with 5 amp batteries. Nice for a lot of stuff. But when it comes to serious use I use the continuous charging models

Edited Tuesday at 01:04 PM by ohiofarmer

[squonk 43,298]

Got any Mennonite run farm supply stores near you? We got one that has just about anything sold by Milwaukee on the shelf. Money for inventory doesn't seem to be a problem. Then a couple years ago I was in the store and next aisle over there was everything made by Makita in there as well. Now next to the Milwaukee aisle the Makita stuff is gone and there is everything made by Dewalt! 

[lynnmor 7,699]

I hope to never buy another battery powered tool, when I look at the auctions and yard sales there are tons of the battery junk that they can't give away.

 

You will likely need to shop online for the chuck key you need.

[midpack 991]

I dunno, I worked in manufacturing and all we had were keyless chucks. Good chucks work very well. 

 

[8ntruck 7,610]

Last year, the local high school robotics team named me 'mentor of the year' and gave me a set of M18 Milwaukee battery tools - drill, impact, reciprocating saw, circular saw, angle grinder, and oscillating tool.  This duplicated what I already had in Blach & Decker battery tools, but OK, we've got a summer house and a winter house.  I won't have to pack tools back and forth between them.

 

I'm pretty impressed with the Milwaukee tools.  They have done everything I've asked from them.  While installing deck boards last summer, I noticed that my Milwaukee impact was driving screws faster than my friend's 20 volt Dewalt.

 

Jobs like dry blending mortar or mixing thin set are beyond a battery tool - a corded 1/2" drill is needed for those.

[adsm08 2,941]

5 hours ago, ohiofarmer said:

Weren't these keys like three bucks a few years ago?

 

It seems everything has about doubled or tripled in price in the last few years.

 

I shut my shop down and went back to work at the dealer in 2019. I just started taking on a bunch of sidework this spring to try and recoup money lost to my employer messing up my W-4 when the company I had been working for was sold in '23. I was amazed at how much things have gone up once I started paying attention to the pricing again. I just bought the first tank of R134A in about 6 years (I don't go through it fast), what cost me $100 retail 6 years ago was $220 ON SALE, and the guy at the counter that rang me out pushed the price down even from the flyer price so I could pay cash.

 

Last week I did front brakes for a guy, just pads and rotors. The parts alone cost what I did pads, rotors, and the drum setups on the same truck for a few years ago, and that's including labor.

 

The last three jobs I did I had trouble telling them what it was going to cost, not because I couldn't figure out what the price should be using my own pricing rubric, it was just that the numbers coming out the other end seemed way too high.

[lynnmor 7,699]

I saw massive inflation coming the day the free money was first handed out using Covid as an excuse.

[ri702bill 9,182]

1 hour ago, adsm08 said:

Last week I did front brakes for a guy, just pads and rotors. The parts alone cost what I did pads, rotors, and the drum setups on the same truck for a few years ago, and that's including labor.

AND - I'm sure the "quality" of the newer aftermarket parts leave a lot to be desired. My son only buys OE parts when he can. His '04 Explorer had an inner tierod replaced 25K ago. It was a part from a chain store - it needs to be replaced again. This time he will use the $38 Ford part, not the $24 aftermarket one... Oh yeah, the Original tierod lasted 175K miles.....

[adsm08 2,941]

I try to  use OE when I can. Sometimes it's just too much.

 

I will say, the parts I used this time, while still not OE parts, are higher quality than what I used last time.

[squonk 43,298]

2 hours ago, adsm08 said:

 

It seems everything has about doubled or tripled in price in the last few years.

 

I shut my shop down and went back to work at the dealer in 2019. I just started taking on a bunch of sidework this spring to try and recoup money lost to my employer messing up my W-4 when the company I had been working for was sold in '23. I was amazed at how much things have gone up once I started paying attention to the pricing again. I just bought the first tank of R134A in about 6 years (I don't go through it fast), what cost me $100 retail 6 years ago was $220 ON SALE, and the guy at the counter that rang me out pushed the price down even from the flyer price so I could pay cash.

 

Last week I did front brakes for a guy, just pads and rotors. The parts alone cost what I did pads, rotors, and the drum setups on the same truck for a few years ago, and that's including labor.

 

The last three jobs I did I had trouble telling them what it was going to cost, not because I couldn't figure out what the price should be using my own pricing rubric, it was just that the numbers coming out the other end seemed way too high.

Refrigerant has been up and down for over a decade. I remember buying R-22 for $100 a 30 pounder to $300 and back down to $150 in the same year. Pretty crazy when you're trying to quote a job on a chiller that takes over 100 lbs. of the stuff. Back in 2018 we bought 2 pallets of it at $300 a can and pre sold cans of it to schools so they could have the stuff there when there rickety refrigeration eq. popped a leak, Try buying R454B now. Around $400 a can if you can even find it

[ohiofarmer 3,358]

I know where there are R12 cans and a full 20 pounder unopened. Dude bought a new truck and had a car he wanted to keep.... What should he do?

[TheGrinch 4]

Wait until you buy R1234YF, the junk is like $60/lb. You don't want any leaks in those systems, too costly to warranty if you don't get em sealed up.

I do European cars, brakes have over doubled, oil is outrageous. 

Everything in NAPA is made in China, I could go on and on.

[adsm08 2,941]

On 6/10/2025 at 8:37 PM, ohiofarmer said:

I know where there are R12 cans and a full 20 pounder unopened. Dude bought a new truck and had a car he wanted to keep.... What should he do?

 

I have an R-12 machine.

 

6 hours ago, TheGrinch said:

Wait until you buy R1234YF, the junk is like $60/lb. You don't want any leaks in those systems, too costly to warranty if you don't get em sealed up.

I do European cars, brakes have over doubled, oil is outrageous. 

Everything in NAPA is made in China, I could go on and on.

 

I know. I deal with the stuff at work and I hate it. I especially hate the machine, so many bells, and whistles, and sensors, and when it breaks I'm usually the only one who has a clue what to do about it. It never acts up unless we have two or three techs, and at least one customer, waiting on it, and then the service manager wants to call the repair guy to come fix it, but he is a week or more out. I keep telling him to just keep a filter and O2 sensor in stock because 9/10 times that fixes it, but the kit is too expensive so he won't buy them until it actually needs it.