Is this kango worth anything? (pics)

[Bruvvamoff]

See pics plz
Ive had it forever, never use it.
I'll post in classifieds too
I can't find any like it, they all have a brand but this just says kango.
I'm thinking of flogging it but how much?

 

[Deleted member 174758]

Kango were once a very well known and highly respected tool manufacturer based in London, and later Peterborough. So it's very old. I think they went to models with plastic motor bodies and handles in the mid-to-late 1970s/early 1980s, not really sure, but we once had a red one dating back to about 1987 or so (bought new). They are extremely heavy against modern kit not to mention generating a probably illegal (these days) amount of vibration. Kango themselves merged with Wolf in 1982, went to an all-red livery in about 1988 (I know that there were green and blue ones before that) and were finally sold-out to Atlas-Copco in about 1992/93. A-C moved production from Peterborough to Winnenden in Germany (the AEG power tools plant - at that time also an A-C subsidiary) and shut down the UK operation. These late (German) models were yellow and black, but they went out of production in the very late 1990s (?) when the Milwaukee Kango drills and breakers (new designs) came in. So some parts are really hard to come by and that (plus the weight and vibration) means that they are not really much used by the trades these days. In decent working order people seem to ask £50 to £150 (check eBay) for the late red/silver (UK) and yellow/black (German) models, but I can't see anyone paying more for one simply because you can buy cheap, but new, Chiwanese models at £120 or so. Take a look at eBay and filter-out new and non-Kango made tools to see what I mean

 

[Bruvvamoff]

Wow I don't think I could have asked for a more informed answer. I was hoping for over a hundred so that sounds good to me. It's like antiques b

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

Back in the day, Kango was used rather like Hoover is today, any electric breaker was called a Kango. Any vac is called a Hoover and people 'Hoover round the house'.

 

[crank39]

Thats very true, if people wanted to break up some concrete the first tool that came into your head was a Kango whether it was a Kango make or not, that just goes to show the popularity of the tool back in the day, nowadays theres a multitude of breakers but people still call them Kangos, much like when people think of nail guns then Hilti is probably the tool that springs to mind first, JCB is the same when people think of a digger

 

[Bruvvamoff]

So actual kango breakers are rare no?

 

[lostinthelight]

I bought one good and one for parts of the 110v blue handle type which I paid £80 over 20 years ago .
Its still my go to tool for heavy breaking if Im feeling like a workout...still not as heavy as the Beaver/panther power packs though

 

[crank39]

So actual kango breakers are rare no?

I would probably say rare in the fact its a survivor but other than that Kango churned these out by the thousands so in this respect its not rare to find/have a Kango breaker, if it were mine and in working order I'd keep it

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

So actual kango breakers are rare no?

I would imagine they are quite rare now, they are a tool which is worked very hard and abused. Most will have failed and been scraped decades ago. Rare as in collectable, I would have thought not. I have never heard of a breaker collector.

Yes, I have used them in the past, when there was power available, but a compressor was not worth getting in..

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

I would probably say rare in the fact its a survivor but other than that Kango churned these out by the thousands so in this respect its not rare to find/have a Kango breaker, if it were mine and in working order I'd keep it

Yes, that is what I would do, if there was any possibility that I might in the future have a use for it. If it were actually mine, with what I have, then I would pass it on - but then I have a couple of SDS drills I can use as small breakers. They cope will all that I am likely to throw at them..

 

[Nige F]

Wow I don't think I could have asked for a more informed answer. I was hoping for over a hundred so that sounds good to me. It's like antiques b

It's 240 volt so only of use to diy. at most I'd say £50. The on/off switches are like hens teeth. So if it packs up ..........

 

[Deleted member 174758]

.....nowadays theres a multitude of breakers but people still call them Kangos

Actually the bigger Milwaukees are still called "Milwaukee Kango" in Europe (but not in the USA, despite Kango being well known over their, particularly in railway track work in days gone by)

...much like when people think of nail guns then Hilti is probably the tool that springs to mind first

Maybe for shot cartridge tools, but for carpentry gas nailers (1st fix) the name is Paslode or Passy

So actual kango breakers are rare no?

No

Rare as in collectable, I would have thought not. I have never heard of a breaker collector.

Well, there is a guy on YouTube who is a Kango collector and who demonstrates a rather nice tater red model 637 and a red 950. As a collector of other tools, though, I have to say that the desirable ones tend to be either mint or near mint condition or (in some cases) just good working tools. TBH if you are trade there are far better (i.e. lighter, faster, less noisy, lower vibration, etc) options out there (such as the Milwaukee Kango 900/950), so they aren't really good working tools any longer

BTW what the guy said about the bigger Kangos being slow to warm up and start actually hammering because the grease needed to be warmed-up (and pressurised?) also held true for the smaller ones even down to the size of conventional SDS drills. On a cold winter morning a Kango 426 (modern 26mm SDS drill introduced in the 1980s) would often take several minutes before it started to hammer at all, but once warm it would go all day providing you didn't stop (and let it cool down). This was the opposite of the early Bosch SDS drills which needed to be rested periodically when used continuously as the pneumatics seemed to loose power (possibly the seals leaking?) but which would hammer from the off when cold. I had both in the 1980s and I can tell you that the Bosch (and almost all other SDS drills, all of which use pneumatic hammer mechanisms) was far better for the sort of hunt and peck work that, say, a carpenter does as opposed to continuous hole drilling of the sort undertaken by an injection DPM contractor (where it might be necessary to drill several hundred holes in one session) and at which the small Kangos excelled. Of course modern SDS drills knock them all into a cocked hat with their rotation stop and reversing features as well as their speed and heavy hammer blow

 

[crank39]

Ever so slightly off topic but while searching youtube for old Kango videos I came across these things, way back in the 70's when I wo a lad i remember hearing these on the building sites arround where we lived, most of the houses were being demolished and these seemed all the rage with all the Irish builders, as kids we were told they were called jumpin jacks, didn't know if that was true but judging by this video I guess it was, one thing does spring to mind though, it looks like you could either flatten your toes or lose some teeth when operating one

 

[Deleted member 174758]

The other name for a whacker or or tamper was "Paddy's motorbike" on account of the guy driving it invariably coming from the Emerald Isle (although many came to work on a bike or the bus). Later on was used to describe Stihl saws

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

The other name for a whacker or or tamper was "Paddy's motorbike" on account of the guy driving it invariably coming from the Emerald Isle (although many came to work on a bike or the bus). Later on was used to describe Stihl saws

I remember those whackers being used. I was loaned a vibrating plate type, 40 years ago when I put hardcore in for my garage base - not nearly has dramatic to watch.