AvE is fun to watch, and full of cool insights into the underappreciated details of tools. but you've got to take his reviews with a few grains of salt. He's coming at it from the perspective of somebody who buys tools to use in heavy industry. If you're buying a cordless drill to hang pictures or maybe build a desk or a fence once a decade, the things he derides as being "not very skookum" will likely last you a lifetime.

Maybe you actually do need an angle grinder rated for an 8-hour duty cycle. But don't buy one just because a YouTuber told you you do. That DeWalt is probably fine.

My heuristic is to first buy the cheap version of a tool. If I use it enough to break it, I then buy a more skookum version.

Are you me?

This is the exact same method I've used to buy tools for ages. Still using the same 19€ corded hammer drill I got 20 years ago to punch some holes in a concrete wall.

On the other hand, my cordless drills is the more skookum version after the cheapo one crapped out on me mid-drywall.

And Harbor Freight makes buying the cheap version as easy can be.

He almost always breaks that down thou.

He also takes apart tools that have failed on him. Recently he had a pair of videos on a couple of cordless impact drivers purchased in bulk that both failed after not much use. So, reviewing failed products.

I really enjoyed AvE channel at first. I’d definitely recommend it to anyone interested in equipment tear downs.

He uses his own colorful language to describe things. If it’s not appealing to you (I eventually grew tired of it) I’d still suggest you look past it and watch a few dozen of his videos anyway.

Lots of good insight on the manufacturing industry/process that I haven’t seen anywhere else.

Picture a Canadian who's spent his career doing technical (equipment repair) work in mining and other heavy industry.

He has a pretty deep knowledge of many things though.

He did a great and hilarious teardown of that failed Juicero product that came out a year or so ago [1], noting how ridiculously overengineered and expensive it is to produce.

1: https://youtu.be/_Cp-BGQfpHQ

The Juicero the physical embodiment of Ego and CV-driven development. People wanted to make the coolest shit possible, using the coolest tools, with no regard to cost or practicality.

People do the same thing in software, but it's not as readily visible as with physical products.

That guy is full of basic wisdom. Big fan here. Love the language too. Exemplary shop talker.

You can also rent tools these days.

Most people don't need most hardware tools most of the time.