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Welcome All! I'm a dreamer, I hope you are too! A Posse ad Esse, or From possibility to reality, is a general state of mind. I hope you'll share your possibilities with me as I will with you. Namaste~

May 4, 2008

Buyer beware!

I bought this sledgehammer last year from home depot. Actually, let me make that statement correct, I bought a sledgehammer of this same model last year from home depot. The one that I had, I used a couple of times during my recycled concrete pavers project last year.

As I mentioned yesterday, we went out and broke up some more concrete over the weekend. After the first load of it was broken up, brought home and unloaded we went back for a second load. I hadn't even taken swing number 1 when the head literally fell off. It seems that the handle made of "American" hardwood had snapped inside but hadn't come loose yet. I used the head of the hammer to push some dirt to the side before swinging, and plop, there it went. I issued forth a few choice descriptive words to illustrate my frustration and then proceeded to head off to home depot to see if I could still exchange it for a replacement. I mean with less than a month of cumulative use it must have been defective or flawed right? I was in luck, I wasn't supposed to be able to return it since it had been over 90 days, but the very nice ladies at the customer service counter let me anyway since they could tell I had hardly used it.
Well guess what? Not ten swings into the brand new off the shelf replacement, and this is what I had. Now I know I am a true stud...(alright take a second while you finish laughing...done? Ok then.) but really, I hadn't even had enough time to get scratches on one side of this thing before I clean broke the top head off again.
I've taken the time on here before to tout products or services that I feel strongly about. As I've said, good products and services deserve good word of mouth advertising. Conversely, poor and shoddy products deserve poor word of mouth. If any of you are in the market for a sledge hammer any time soon, I encourage you to steer clear of this product, at least the wooden handled one. Which begs me to ask the question, what exactly is "American" hardwood. Didn't good American handles use to be Ash or Hickory? Is this the same variety of "American" product as "American cheese"? Why have we let the name of the greatest country in the world (no offense to those you from elsewhere, but it's how I feel. I wouldn't expect you to feel less for your country.) get associated with poor quality and cheap products? It's a shame really, we're better than that.
On a good note, I had a great weekend over all, I hope you all did too.
P~

4 comments:

Phelan said...

We go through potato forks the same way.

Happy belated birthday!

Kory said...

http://worryfarm.blogspot.com/2008/04/timing-is-everything.html

A similar saga with a forked spade from the Home Despot. I feel your pain

Anonymous said...

Wow. You're lucky no one got hurt.

I hate cheap stuff.

Celt said...

Looks about right. We have pretty much sacrificed quality for quantity. Makes you wonder whatever happened to Malcolm Baldridge, 'Zero Tolerance' and 'Six Sigma'.