Sometimes your work takes you down a rabbit hole and you have to follow it, even if you never get all the answers you desire. Amazon has a limited assortment of DCK Tools in the USA, but in other countries, DCK has enough tools to rival Milwaukee or DEWALT in their assortment. DCK also has large battery packs and some innovative designs. What pulled me into testing a drill was that the kit came with a 4Ah battery, not some small compact battery like most kits we find in typical USA box stores.
A few days later via Amazon Prime, the drill was delivered and it was very impressive. So much so that it pushed me to do some serious research on who DCK was and how they are not more of a player in the tool game. It turns out, they are a very large player in the tool game, we just do not know it.
So while searching DCK it showed that Dongcheng tools are also closely related. Both tool companies are owned by Jiangsu Dongcheng Power Tools Co. Jiangsu Dongcheng Power Tools Co has been in business for 27 years and is an OEM and ODM tool manufacturer. If you are not familiar, an OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) builds a customer’s product that is fully designed by that customer and then contracted out to produce. The Apple iPhone, for example, was invented and designed by Apple, and then contracted by Foxconn to build. With this, the iPhone has a much higher level of product differentiation because the design is only available to Apple and its contracted manufacturer. ODM (Original Design Manufacturer) is also referred to as private labeling or white label products. In this case, the manufacturer has an existing product design and the customer may make slight changes to sell it under their own brand name. Some examples of changes include branding, colors, or packaging. So the long and the short is that Jiangsu Dongcheng Power Tools Co probably built or designed some of the tools you have in your collection without you even knowing it.
If you take a close look at many of the tools and the colors, you will notice a resemblance to other popular tools in the USA, and a few are unmistakably made for other popular brands. How do we know these are not copies? Well, the size of this company and the fact that we have seen this with another large company in China says it all. While we are brainwashed to think that our favorite tool manufacturer makes everything they sell, that simply is not true. An easy example is DEWALT. They license out so many products just so they have the DEWALT name on it. But DEWALT and the company who makes them do not really let you know that. Chervon, the owner of EGO, FLEX and HammerHead also makes Kobalt tools and used to make the Sears-branded Craftsman tools.
So what we are looking at here in the DCK tool is most likely the internals from another very popular brand at 40% of the price. That interests me in finding out if the performance is similar. While we do not have the option to fully invest in the DCK battery platform in the USA, it looks like it is coming. Am I telling you to jump ship from Milwaukee and Dewalt and invest in DCK? No, but if you own Kobalt 24-volt tools, you would be doing something very similar. For research and a bit of knowledge, it seems smart to take a look at all the quality and professional brands out there. With that said, many of the tools on www.dongchengtool.com/ are pro tools. In fact, many of the videos showing the tools used are almost the same as the popular pro brand that this company probably makes.
The video will show how well this small drill performed. I sure wish Amazon would have had the larger hammer drill that has 1081 in. lbs. of torque! Maybe in the near future we can get our hands on that tool and see how it compares to the Brute Tough drill with almost the exact same specs!
This sort of stuff interests me. I hope it interests you also. Take a look at the tools and do a bit of reading. There is some good stuff on those websites.
