So lets talk Harbor Freight tools

[Alan Schwabacher]

You need to look over what you are buying carefully. The pipe clamps I bought first worked smoothly and perfectly. That lowered my guard, and I bought a bunch more. Some of those were terribly made, with rough and distorted castings, and the roll pins would work themselves loose as you tightened the clamps. Be ready to try things soon after you buy them, and bring them back if they are not acceptable.

[Tom Andersen]

Looking at that site reminded me, I've got one of their digital calipers. It works great, I use it all the time. I plan on getting one that displays in fractions, but I imagine the HF one will still get use.

same here, but the battery wears out pretty fast. Any smart source for button batteries?

[david scheidt]

HF have a complete lack of quality control. If the stuff is made to spec, it'll be okay. If it's not, it's junk, but they'll still sell it. As an example, about 5 years ago, I bought three 4 1/2" angle grinders. There were on sale, for some silly cheap price, like less $10. I was working on a welding project, and having several grinders with different wheels in them saves lots of time. One lasted three days, and maybe an hour's use. The second lasted a somewhat longer time; the third is still going. I've got a number of tools, where I bought them because I wanted a tool to do one job, and if it lasted long enough to do that, I got my money's worth, since I'm not likely to use them again. I don't think I'd buy a precision tool from them. I also get a fair amount of consumables from them (rags, gloves, foam brushes), as they're really cheap, and if they're on sale, dirt cheap.

[Josiah Bartlett]

I like the variable speed reciprocating saw as well. Its a great tool for what it is. I've abused mine as well, not a problem at all.

Their biscuit joiner is pretty poor. Most of their angle grinders and air tools are ok.

Oh, and the dust collector is good for the price.

I have the 34706 wood lathe. Its decent for the price, and if you change the tool rest its pretty good. It takes standard MT#2 and 1"x8 tpi accessories. I put a shelf on the stand and piled 6 bags of hardened up sackrete on it. Its stable as heck now.

The mortiser is ok too. It cuts nice holes but the holddown is a bit flimsy. A bit of ingenuity takes care of that. I'm going to try the XY table idea out, I have an extra cross slide vise hanging around that I'm not using.

I also found a #5 bench plane there a few years ago that is pretty decent once you true it up, but I haven't found one since. It was made in India and I use it almost as much as my nice vintage Bailey.

The big TiN coated drill index with fractional, lettered, and numbered bits is a bargain too.

[Julian Wong]

1/2" crown pneumatic stapler - got it on sale for $10. Has a very small small air leak I can hear it hissing when air hose attached, but doesn't affect function. The HF staples were crap, they fit too tight in the clip and wouldn't advance up after firing. Switched to some staples from Menards, can't remember brand name, works pretty good now. About every 10 to 20 staples or so it doesn't fire a staple, just dryfires. Upping the air pressure seems to minize this.

Pneumatic fittings - price is right and not much that can go wrong with these.

Kim, I had a different experience with you. I also have the 1/2"crown stapler. I first had bought Airy staples, which are supposed to be branded but it kept jamming the driver as well as cassette and ejecting staples by popping open the "loading magazine". I switchtd back to the el-chepo HF staples and it has not misfired since.

As for HF pneumatic fittings, I don't use them anymore. They leak so much. I now use Milton and nothing else. No leaks, in any temperature.

[Jesse Cloud]

Good: carpeted moving dolly - casters are good and its way cheap

come a long - only used a couple of times, but so far, so good

sheet metal crimper - same as above

pack of assorted brushes - several different mixes of useful sized brushes at a good price

work gloves - I loose these so quickly that cheap ones are just fine

mover's blankets - how could you go wrong??


Bad: chip brushes - even with low expectations, don't have time to pull bristles out of my glue, don' want to risk leaving one in a stain

latex gloves - real POC, never finished a task without them starting to tear, nitrile gloves are a little better, but not much



Wouldn't buy anything critical to the job there, but ok for disposable/consumable stuff.

no one has mentioned their hydraulics yet - anyone??

[Brian Weick]

put to much faith in those power tools , sorry, but they are sort of disposable to me, not all of them. I have there compressors ~ now those i am very happy with. But the power tools and things of that nature~ na, There grab bag of bits are OK, and the fostner set is OK , but again , you get what you pay for.
my 2 cents
Brian

[Steven Wilson]

Harbor Freight - cheap tools sold cheaply. They are a store of consumables. I have, however, been pleasantly surprised with some of the air tools I've procured through them. They lasted through the job I bought them for so I consider them a good deal.

[Richard M. Wolfe]

I have a Makita SCMS that does a great job. No way would I buy a HF SCMS expecting it to do an equal job (I don't even know if they sell one). It might, but I'm not even going to try finding out. Just be selective in what you get.

A friend bought a combo pin nailer/stapler and has gone through about 5,000 of their staples without a misfire. The other pneumatic tools are fine also. I try to catch them on sale for $15 or less and if one bites the bullet toss it (true American consumerism ) and get another. If I were going to use one on the job every day I'd pay ten times as much for dependability (or maybe just keep a couple more HF's in the pickup) but I have no kick with them.

I just bought a $15 trim router there. I chucked a 1/16" roundover bit into it and that's where it's going to stay for the dedicated purpose of easing edges to save me the chore of changing and adjusting bits . The angle grinder/sander I got has worked just fine.

Love their f-clamps. Catch them on sale for about a quarter of the Jorgenson price (and they even have pads) and back the pickup up to the door. I glue up a lot of panels and they get put to use. No, they're not as stout as the Jorgenson, but.... If I have to use something stronger to flush the pieces the joint isn't made correctly to start with.

Biggest single item was their 9 ton electric winch. Welded a platform on the front of the trailer and bolted it to it and it's skidded a bunch of logs up to a couple tons up ramps and onto the trailer. No complaints with it.

I can't think of anything I've gotten there that was a total write-off, but with the exception of the winch I just mentioned what I got was non-consumables purchased with a consumable frame of mind.

[Rick Gifford]

The worse thing I bought from them was a snap ring plier set. It was on sale.

I have one pair of snap ring pliers, they are old. I thought well... I know these will be low end chinese tools but the price is good even for that so if they work at all that will be fine.

Opened the case and there they were, covered in new oil. Looked nice. Until I picked them up.

Not one pair lined up nose to nose when closed. They wobbled in your hand during open/close. I can't imagine anyone being successful getting a snap ring on or off with these.

They gave chinese tools a bad name, thats how bad they were. Took 'em back and got my money back.

I wasnt expecting much seriously, but wow was I suprised how cheap those really were.

I buy their wire brushes by the handfull. They are so low cost who cares if they arent the best around. Easy to throw away. Same with brushes for varnish, glue etc.

I have some allen wrenches that work fine. Hammers are ok.

Just have to be selective in Harbor Freight.

[David G Baker]

I do not own any HF items that I know of. If a HF store was located near me I would take a look at what they have to offer. I have read many threads on different sites that discuss HF items and the majority of posters trash HF tools. I do go to the HF Internet site and look around once in a while and if there was something there that interested me I would give it a chance. Items where safety is a concern I will not purchase from HF, I will go with brands that have a good reputation for safe operation.
I have been to several of the traveling tool sales and feel that most of the items sold are not of the quality that I would buy and the items cost almost as much as quality brand name products.

[Lee DeRaud]

I've been (ab)using one of their right-angle drills for sanding bowls on the lathe for a couple years now: appears to be pretty much bulletproof, and only cost about $20 on sale to begin with.

[Julian Wong]

This HF tool works great:

My arms get tired swinging that thing aroud before I actually hit a fly!

Ok. maybe I'm slow bnut I think it's a POS

[Kim Spence]

Kim, I had a different experience with you. I also have the 1/2"crown stapler. I first had bought Airy staples, which are supposed to be branded but it kept jamming the driver as well as cassette and ejecting staples by popping open the "loading magazine". I switchtd back to the el-chepo HF staples and it has not misfired since.

As for HF pneumatic fittings, I don't use them anymore. They leak so much. I now use Milton and nothing else. No leaks, in any temperature.

Maybe I just got a box of staples from a bad batch. The strips wern't glued together perfectly straight so some of them were catching on the magazine. I may give them another shot knowing that they work fine for someone else. Though Menards is 5 miles away while HF is 30 miles away, so maybe I'll just stick with the Menards staples

And clarification about the pneumatic fittings...I've only used their 1/4" male fittings, they work fine with the female fittings on hoses I've purchased elsewhere. I haven't tried any HF female fittings or other pneumatic components.

[Stephen Edwards]

2 HP Air compressor and fittings...no problems

2 HP DC Unit........no problems

cheap t-handle pipe clamps....ok for the money

Quick grip clamps........junk

white latex gloves............junk

Blue nitrile gloves...work fine for my needs

Bench top OSS......fine tool with no problems at all. Well made with well machined cast iron table, good DC. Works perfectly for about half the price of others in its price range.

compound miter saw.....no problems but rarely used. They certainly have some junky ones but the one I bought is accurate and well made for the money.

DC blast gates, fittings, etc.....best deal around for the money. Mine all work perfectly.

I don't own nor am I apt to buy a major power tool from them. I do intend to get the small trim router that someone else mentioned for the same purpose they stated.