Northern Tool  https://www.northerntool.com/

 

On the way back from Rockler, I swung by the grand opening of a Northern Tool store here in town.  Mostly just to see what it was all about.  Seemed to have a good assortment of tools for mechanics, contractors, etc.  Carry Milwaukee, DeWalt, and a store brand of tools.   Didn't buy anything but will keep them in mind.  Coincidentally, on the way down the street they're on, I passed Gorilla Glue's new warehouse (or at least one of them).  I remember just a few years ago, I went by their old warehouse that was in a closed (Swallen's) department store building.   Just for reference, they were an outgrowth of Lutz File and Tool Co.   They make things like multitip screwdrivers that sit on the counters of small hardware stores.   Coincidentally, maybe 30 years ago, they also owned Millers Falls, a long time manufacturer of tools like planes and brace and bit sets.   As an aside, I finished a cabinet for the owners to match another one.  Yellow with a burnt umber glaze that was sold to them by one of my retail customers.

 

Forgot to say, it's right off I-75 if any of you midwesterners are passing thru.

There's a couple in Indy; one on the North side, one on the South. Both not far from I465/ I65. Never been in either, but I did get their paper catalog for a few years. I'm still on their weekly email and sales list. They do carry some unique items not readily found elsewhere.

Since the pandemic hit I've rarely ventured around my town, but apparently there is a newish Harbor Freight store and a slew of new fast food stores opening where previous stores closed due to the pandemic.  My town isn't a woodworker's haven.  The area was a treeless plain where buffalos roamed before any settlers got here and houses were sod not wood.  Even the university I taught at was a lonely stone building in the middle of a treeless "hill" when my grandfather attended.  Times have changed though and now my gutters fill with fallen leaves.  I believe I would have lived a different life,  taken a different path, if I'd been brought up in a forested area where wood meant life and trees have always been there.   I also appear to be on the emailing list of Rockler and Northern Tool and on and on.  No real need for anything they sell these days but I do enjoy looking. 

4D

I had a very unfortunate visit to Northern tool.  I had a electric chain saw to get repaired.  They said over the phone bring it in.  Then when I got there after a hours drive it was a no go because it was electric.  I completely dissembled it and found that the bearing on the shaft had over heated and the plastic housing deformed badly.

So in the end it was not repairable. But the way I was treated left me with I will probably never go back.