Chinese plan for failure?

[mklotz]

I don't want to abuse my good metalworking drills by using them on jobs around the house so I keep cheapies in my "house tool" bags. These well-abused drills kept falling out of their plastic holders and sifting to the bottom of the bag which made finding the desired size a pain.

So, when I saw a DeWalt 18 piece set with a really secure container on sale for a good price I bought it. Good American name although, of course, made in China, it has the 1/2" drill with a 3/8" turned-down section so can be used in 3/8" electric drill.

It wasn't until I looked closely that I noticed it had space for two 3/16" drills! I presumed it was a labeling error but, upon measurement, there really were two 3/16" drills in those slots.

Recently, Lowe's had another sale and I bought a 21 piece set in a nearly identical container. Even more surprising, this one has two 1/8" and two 1/4" ! And yes, I checked the sizes; they really are duplicates, not mis-labeling.

None of this bothers me. I was most interested in the secure cases plus having some sharp drills. I have plenty of drills to cover whatever sizes are missing and I'll probably never need those sizes around the house.

What puzzles me is why they are doing this. Does DeWalt and/or their Chinese partners think that these more common sizes will be used more and thus dull/break enough that backups are in order? Is it a clever way to save a few pennies by advertising a 21 piece set that, in reality, only contains 19 distinct sizes?

Whatever the reason, check the actual sizes included when buying cheap drill sets.