For a long time I was a Grizzly fan. If there was a tool that I was buying new, it was likely to be from Grizzly. The thing I quickly learned was that there was a price point for quality. If the price was above around $100, then the product would be good out of the package. For less than $100, expect to interact with their excellent customer service.
I stumbled on Vevor as a low cost brand and gave them a try with a rotary table.
The table was precisely what I expected. I had to deburr parts of the inside, clean some metal out of the oil bath, but since then, perfection.
It was so good that I built mounts for a dividing plates and used it for cutting gears, worth every penny.
Then I purchased a hydraulic lift table. This goes from about 10 inches to 10 inches with a foot pedal. It locks in place at around 36 inches, a good working height. The wheels are heavy duty. I purchased the 500-pound version, but they have a 1000-pound version as well.
The lift table allows me to slide heavy things off workbenches to move into storage and back again.
Again, a great purchase for a reasonable price.
The trolley system is using a Vevor trolley and a Vevor chain hoist. Again good quality, good gravity.
Finally, for the railing I’m putting in, I picked up a manual pipe threading kit from Vevor. The build quality is wonderful; everything fits well. Tomorrow, after the beam is up, I’m going to be building a railing from 3/4 inch black pipe.
The threading kit was around $30, it comes with a 1/2 in, 3/4 in and 1 in die. All I’ll need in the next 10 years.
I can recommend them. They are all over Amazon.
Good to know there’s another option for moderately priced tools.
For “cheap but may be adequate” one of my options is Harbor Freight. There’s a store nearby, so I can see what I’m buying. I got beam trollies and chain hoists from them, they work fine. And I got a hydraulic press (12 ton I think) which is straight enough to work.
For anything requiring precision I’m likely to look elsewhere. For example, a 22 mm impact socket is close enough to work but just off enough to notice.
There used to be Enco Tools which was decent and good prices, but they seem to have disappeared. More recently I have used another mail order supplier that seems to be an industrial supply outfit (not Grainger, forgot the name, starts with M I think). They are interesting because they often offer an item in several grades, as in “Imported”, “US” and a brand name, 3 different prices. I’ve bought a caliper set from them that came from Pakistan at maybe 1/3rd the price of a Starrett set. For my skill level and the capabilities of my roughly 100 year old lathe, that seems to be sufficient. I can always upgrade if I want to do finer grade work.
Was it MSC? Between them, McMaster-Carr and Granger, they have catalog sales sort of cornered.