The Independence Journal
One Opportunity from Jobjacking
From China with Love
Maybe it comes from growing up in a family of Seattle fire fighters that got me started on tools. What's the old saying, "He who dies with the most tools is still dead?" But regardless of where you put having a good selection of tools on your list of priorities in life, all of us humans who walk upright depend, to some measure, on tools.
When our modular house burned in January, just when I lost my job in the software industry, we turned out being extremely fortunate in several regards. First, the insurance company totaled the house - which paid off the mortgage giving us what was left free and clear. Then, because we live in a county where the building department doesn't even try and enforce building codes on common sense (and quite bright) farmers and ranchers, we had just about carte blanche to do with the house whatever we wanted. Perhaps one of these days - when it's finished - we'll show you the transformation from "trailer house and garage" to "executive home and office building."
The point of today's rap is to marvel in how the Universe has blessed us with a window of opportunity to gather together pretty decent tools at some truly amazing prices. Let me walk you through some recent projects and show you what bargains can be had if you only take the time to sniff them out.
We'll begin by describing one of our more recent tool finds. Here, loaded up with a pile of treated 8 foot 3 X 5 fence posts, is a convertible cart - made in China, and sold to us by the local retailer in Tyler Texas (Home Depot) for the skinflint price of $69.90.
Now that may not strike you as such a bargain until you get into the specifications of this garden cart. 1,000 pound capacity & pneumatic wheels. Really, the first thing that attracted me to it was the fact that the handle came with an adapter. You could either slip on the handle - in which case it was like an overgrown kid's wagon, or you could take off the handle, and slip the convertible hitch onto the family yard tractor for hauling things around.
While our place in Texas isn't that big, it is certainly large enough to require a tractor for things like mowing the 2 acres of yard.
With the price of food obviously headed skyward, we had decided to put in a good-sized garden. The idea was to build something that would be big enough to feed 3-4 people for several months, and if the world really took a nose dive and hyper inflation reared its head, we wanted to be able to sell a few of the home grown produce items.
The starting place with any good garden is to talk to the neighbors - and as luck would have it, when we "bought the farm" sight unseen, it came complete with just about the nicest set of neighbors a person could ask for. Knowledgeable, caring, and willing to trade a bit of our work for a contribution of theirs.
That's how things work out in the country, as we've discovered, since leaving the rat race (not for too long we hope). People out here look out for one another, something that doesn't happen in the city-coop dwellings (apartments) and tightly packed suburbs.
The garden runs along a generally northwest to southeast line, which follows the contours of the hill. Although the hill is nothing to speak of in Pacific Northwest terms, in Texas this passes as a good sized hill, and the land is prone to erosion if care is not taken to keep the forces of nature in check.
We had purchased a post hole digger - the kind that
you put into the ground with your foot, and I actually dug in the first of the
posts. But the layout of the garden I had in mind was a collection of
about 20-dug in posts.
I did a little quick calculating after my first manual hole and figured that it would be three back-breaking days of post hole digging with nothing to show for it but blisters - if I was lucky.
The potential downside was that I could run into a root down 18" out of the 24 to dig and waste an additional hour or so trying to get past the bugger.
Remember the great neighbors I mentioned? Turns out their tractor has a power takeoff - and they have about the finest collection of PTO tools you could dream of. So with a promise to do some work in kind (since repaid) the neighbor was kind enough to bring over his small diesel tractor with the auger attached. It took us 45 minutes without breaking a sweat to drill all the holes, including two which had "big as your thumb" roots. The decision not to do the job by hand was looking like genius. Cost of this tool? Zero. Being unemployed, the hours spent repaying the labor did not go for my old billable $200/hour rate. It's fun to help neighbors who help you....and not taxable.
The stakes for the project were cut out on another one of those delightful tools we found that the Chinese have been busy making in their factories - a Delta table saw.
A table saw? What could be so exciting about a table saw? Well, the answer is the price. Some people don't know that Lowe's and some of the other large stores have price match promises. What this means simply is that if you find a better price for exactly the same product elsewhere, they will give the the tool at that price and with a rebate to boot.
In the case of this particular saw, I started lusting after it when I visited a place called Southerland's in Palestine, Texas. A good supply house, the saw caught my eye when we were still wearing masks every waking hour in the house as we demolished damaged parts of the building. It was only $99.95 - and I knew that it would come in handy.
Still, at the leading edge of the house rebuilding process, there were just too many unknowns that prevented me from buying it on the spot, although it was clearly a bargain. The variables that were still in play at the time included not knowing how long the insurance company would take to settle on the house. (Answer: 3 weeks including issuing the check for the full coverage amount). Another was wondering what the contractor bids would come in at - if they came in where I feared, the saw would be out of the question - it would be just the lone Skil saw for the whole project.
Well, as matters worked out, the bids came in much better than feared, thanks to massive design changes to the house, so a ways further into the project, I happened to be at the Lowe's in Tyler and there was the saw. Same price. So as I checked out, saw in hand, I mentioned this to the tool department cashier. "Better read your receipt," he advised. "There's either a $20 or $30 rebate on this here saw." So there was. All I needed to do was clip off the UPC code from the box and send in the receipt. Done deal.
That effectively lowered the price of the saw to $80. Sure, the table base is made of plastic. But I'm building a house, not a subdivision. And with a 10" blade, rip fence, and enough clearance to probably squeeze out a 1/2" dado, I figure I'm set.
During the course of construction, we noticed with no small amount of envy that our contractor had an 18 volt electric drill (Black and Decker). Not only was it a good looking drill, but he could seemingly screw in sheetrock screws all day without changing batteries.
Even once the sheetrock was up, I knew we would have to get a cordless drill. True, there was nothing wrong with the 1/2" chuck Black and Decker corded drill, except for the cord and the fact that the chuck key kept getting lost. Hell, I think it's still lost today.
When I was a kid, my late father had a drill made by the Pall Mall Tool Company. What they had done was supplied this old timer 1/4" drill with a chuck that was permanently attached to the power cord by means of a rawhide lanyard.
The beauty of that old system was that the chuck key was never lost. If you were bright enough to follow the power cord from the drill back till you found the plug, somewhere along the way you would run across the chuck key lanyard.
Not so with the "modern" Black and Decker. The chuck key -
swear to God - wanders off on breaks periodically of its own accord. No
question about it, the corded drill was going to get some competition...but
where to begin?
I knew from past shopping training (women have taught me well) that every once in a while you can find a genuine good deal at a pawn shop. While we stopped at several in the area, the only things close were priced almost at list and the condition of the batteries would be unknown.
Finally, like out of the blue, we were shopping today at the Albertsons store - yes, that's right - Albertsons - and they had for sale AC Delco 18 Volt power screwdriver/drills that look almost the same as the Black and Decker unit. Except for the price. Ready? $19.95. For this you get the drill, an 18 volt battery pack, charger, 6 drill bits and 7 driver bits, and a carrying case. Better yet, you get a USA number to call of AC Delco in California, where you can older parts and batteries. To think, I had almost purchased an 18 V B&D unit two weeks earlier at Lowe's for $79. Whew! But then again, like I said, the Universe seems to take care of us.
Oh the chuck key for the B& D is still missing, but I have a keyless chuck on this drill. I figure the chuck key will show up when it starts to feeling lonesome, sort of like cats do.
One other thing caught my eye at Albertsons - and it's why we didn't get out of the store till parting with $234 dollars (we loaded up on some long term items). It was a genuine Coleman single mantle gas lantern. It was being closed out for just $26.
Once again, I just can't pass up a bargain. While we were still in Boca Raton, I had purchased a dozen 1-pound gas cylinders for $1.69 each during a closeout. Because they last forever, I figured I couldn't go wrong. With the adapter for the two-burner camp stove, I was not planning to run out of cooking options - and now with a 500 gallon propane tank plus adapters, we almost have enough cooking fuel to last us until we die even assuming the power goes off tomorrow and stays off 20-years.
This light was a gem. Cheap, easy to put together and use. Again, only $26.
Does all of this lead to some cosmic inspired bottom line? I think so.
It's ironic that while we may be fighting with China over food for starving billions in the next two or three years due to climate change, they are today selling us the very tools that we could use to make America strong again - and rebuild our destroyed industries.
--George
Contact Information:
Publisher: george@ure.net
Editor: elaine@ure.net
All contents © 2004 George A. Ure