December 21, 2009

Craftsman evolv

We were doing some Christmas shopping at Sears the other day and noticed a new line of hand tools from Craftsman called evolv. It looks like it has replaced the Companion line of tools as their inexpensive line of (mostly) hand tools.

As far as we're concerned, this line is all about two things; packaging and price. The packaging has this eco-vibe to it, marked by the raw cardboard backer boards for the tools. We half expected to see a notice on the packaging saying that the tools were BPA free and that the indigenous third-world workers that put them together were paid via some sort of fair trade agreement. The color scheme is a nice gray with a green that seems to mimic Ryobi's li-ion line. Overall, there's a harmless 'Starbucks/Putamayo' quality to the presentation that's undeniably appealing. There's even some mysterious pronunciation symbol under the 'e' in 'evolve.'

As for price, these things are extremely economical, which is great for us. Over the years we've come to regard most hand tools as disposable, one step up from drill bits and recip saw blades. We'll buy a nice, expensive screwdriver set and soon one of them is lost at the site, one's lost in the garage, one is lost in the basement and a few others are just plain old lost. We've long since stopped wasting our money on pricey hand tools. We've got our nice hammer, but that's about it. So, at some point we might be at Sears and if we're sick of trying to remember where we last used our #2 Philips screwdriver, we might toss the evolve set in the shopping basket (ten screwdrivers for $15).

The line also has wrenches, pliers, socket sets, multi-tools, a number of full tool sets, and even a 3.6-volt screwdriver.

More information at evolve and Sears