Festool Toolie

[sae]

Beta Tools are available from Pegasus Auto Racing, but the prices will give you a heart attack!!!  [scared]

I swear it seems like the price went up after they shifted from Italy to mostly Taiwan (or China?).
May as well just kit out with PBSwiss!  [big grin]

[member=19475]yetihunter[/member] This is only partially true, but most of their hand tools are still made in Italy. Stay away from the Beta Easy line, which is their entry level offering, and you'll find some nice tools, for half of what Snap-On asks.

Wrenches are for sure still made in Italy, screwdrivers (Betamax and BetaGrip), hammers, pliers, sockets and ratchets as well. If you buy their soft goods like workwear, some of their specialty stuff (like diesel injector removal tool for a very specific car), then you'll get some Taiwan stuff.

Their impact sockets are actually made in Japan.

Thought about some PB Swiss stuff, but Beta is the only one who forges their hex keys, and decided to stick with them.

 

[yetihunter]

Beta Tools are available from Pegasus Auto Racing, but the prices will give you a heart attack!!!  [scared]

I swear it seems like the price went up after they shifted from Italy to mostly Taiwan (or China?).
May as well just kit out with PBSwiss!  [big grin]

[member=19475]yetihunter[/member] This is only partially true, but most of their hand tools are still made in Italy. Stay away from the Beta Easy line, which is their entry level offering, and you'll find some nice tools, for half of what Snap-On asks.

Wrenches are for sure still made in Italy, screwdrivers (Betamax and BetaGrip), hammers, pliers, sockets and ratchets as well. If you buy their soft goods like workwear, some of their specialty stuff (like diesel injector removal tool for a very specific car), then you'll get some Taiwan stuff.

Their impact sockets are actually made in Japan.

Thought about some PB Swiss stuff, but Beta is the only one who forges their hex keys, and decided to stick with them.

It appears that I was grossly misinformed.
Thank you for the correction!

 

[Euclid]

Most of my automotive tools are Beta and older (French-made) Facom and have been pleased with all of them  - including screwdriver and hex bits and hex keys. I can only only recall one notable Beta failure in many years: that was a metal-nibbler which failed due to gross over-ambition on the part of the user (me) - and the component was easily replaceable.

I have a few PB Swiss items - mostly hex-keys and bits - and they've been excellent; no problems with them at all, thus far.

As for Japanese stuff: I have quite a few speciality and impact sockets by Koken (or Ko-ken) and they've been utterly dependable for many, many years. Not especially cheap, but not Snap-on money either.

 

[sae]

As for Japanese stuff: I have quite a few speciality and impact sockets by Koken (or Ko-ken) and they've been utterly dependable for many, many years. Not especially cheap, but not Snap-on money either.

[member=42852]Euclid[/member] The made-in-Japan Beta impact sockets that I mentioned are made by Ko-ken, and in turn, Ko-ken happens to sell made-in-Italy spanners that look very similar to the Betas.

I've been trying not to buy some Nepros stuff, their tools are just straight up art, and I couldn't justify bashing them around like I do.

 

[yetihunter]

Watch with vigorus attention as this innocent review mutates into a facsimile of the epic Tools From the Old World thread on the garagejournal forum. 

[big grin]

 

[Euclid]

Yeti...

>

Ah, you've been there too, have you?

I had been meaning to post some pics to that forum, but never got around to bringing stuff in to photograph properly (and it can be a bit of a bear-pit on there sometimes!).
Perhaps we need a new thread here if there's interest in this stuff, rather than amongst the Festool tool reviews? 

Anyhow, since we've already strayed off-piste...

Some of the Nepros items belong in a velvet tray in jeweller's window; but I feel you'd want to wear gloves to protect the handles rather than your hands… I believe they also have some with handles made from beautifully-figured woods.

Sae:

I don't think I've ever seen those Ko-ken wrenches before. Presumably there is some tie-in between Ko-ken and Beta then? Although there is another brand that features Made-in Italy items; is it Usag? It's often unclear just who-makes-what these days, is it?

For those not familiar with Beta, most of their other stuff has a very glossy, smooth chrome finish;  for me the finish on their spanners (wrenches, for the non-British) always looks a bit 'tinsely' and 'cheap' in photographs (especially with flash) - in reality the finish is not quite so strident, but just a little shinier than, say, the German top-quality brand, Hazet, which are famously restrained in appearance.

That Beta finish has proved to be very durable (and not difficult to keep clean) - although I try to take care of my tools (I'm not a pro auto mechanic), those wrenches have built and rebuilt a track car from the ground up three time over, been borrowed by others and kicked around pits and paddocks across Europe for nearly twenty years and they still look good with no damage. The open ends of the combination spanners are a bit on the large side and less elegant than some other brands but they do seem to be very strong. 

Another 'jewel-like' wrench is the old US-made Proto 500, which look georgeous, but I haven't found the chrome to be as robust as I expected (maybe I should have tried to warranty them, but I'm sure they're not made anymore).

Another brand I have a few pieces of, and like, is Stahlwille; their sockets have a very fine and 'restrained' finish, inside and out, and have usefully thin walls.

 

[yetihunter]

The seal is already cracked!

 

[yetihunter]

I mean, technically the toolie is a Wiha product, and technically Wiha and Heyco have business agreements, and technically we've been talking about Wiha's and Heyco's competition, so technically we're totally in the clear.  [big grin]