Lee Valley and Harbor Freight - same thing?

[Dave Anderson NH]

Joshua, In the mechanical world everything depends both on the general quality of the manufacturer, the criticality level of the part or parts, customer specifications, and contract specifications. To further complicate things, the length of the run of parts also has an effect. If you are making a batch of 20, any attempt to do sampling and apply statistical process control techniques is of limited value since a good minimum sample size is 30. If you are setting up for a run in the multiple thousands of parts you run the first few pieces and do a capability study, adjust your process and run another study. You then commence the production run and sample throughout the run. If you start to lose tolerance because of tooling wear you should be able predict the point where you will go outside the allowable tolerance and replace, sharpen, or do whatever is necessary to the tooling at a safe point before you reach your upper or lower control limits (still inside the tolerance). This is a vastly over simplified explanation, but everything depends on the customer requirements and the general honesty and reliability of the supplier.

[Lawrence Richards]

not to chime in too much here, but aren't patents only good for 20 years? I mean, it doesn't seem out of the question that the original patent for these transfer punches was before 1990 or so... and in that case it's not thievery but just good business practice that other countries are using? I'm not trying to comment on the moral grounds of using child labor/unfair monetary advantages etc.--this is a different ball of wax. I'm just saying that if a patent runs out it is not theft or immoral to produce the item--again, I KNOW that there are companies in China and elsewhere that are in violation of international patent laws--I'm not talking about that but am talking about companies producing out of patent items... just like Lie Nielsen "copying" old stanley items... nothing legal or morally wrong with it, but if it was "East Asia Nielsen" producing the items certain folks would go into a tailspin.

I'm just saying...
Lawrence

ps- I have the harbor freight punch set--and I can assure you that it is a VERY good value at $7... if I could get a similar value in a US made item, I would, but short of going to a yard sale I'm not holding my breath.

[george wilson]

What you say is true. But there are,indeed,those who rail against the copying of very old Stanley planes,whose patents expired many decades ago,and Stanley in the first place had its own legal problems with Bailey over his designs in the first place,IIRC.

[Mark Baldwin III]

Joshua, In the mechanical world everything depends both on the general quality of the manufacturer, the criticality level of the part or parts, customer specifications, and contract specifications. To further complicate things, the length of the run of parts also has an effect. If you are making a batch of 20, any attempt to do sampling and apply statistical process control techniques is of limited value since a good minimum sample size is 30. If you are setting up for a run in the multiple thousands of parts you run the first few pieces and do a capability study, adjust your process and run another study. You then commence the production run and sample throughout the run. If you start to lose tolerance because of tooling wear you should be able predict the point where you will go outside the allowable tolerance and replace, sharpen, or do whatever is necessary to the tooling at a safe point before you reach your upper or lower control limits (still inside the tolerance). This is a vastly over simplified explanation, but everything depends on the customer requirements and the general honesty and reliability of the supplier.

I could go on for days!!! Just on that alone. Dave, you are dead on. I'm not going to take away from what you said one bit. The key is what you said about tolerances. I've dealt with Chinese auditors who demand the utmost of work...but themselves fail to provide quality work! I work in aviation repair and overhaul. I work to very high standards, the things I see from some parts of the world make me scared to fly.
For tool making, though...well...you can get some pretty decent MIC tools. I'll never own them, though. But that's purely political.

[george wilson]

I'd never make a blanket statement that HF and LV are the same. The real problem with ANY imported tools,or other things,is that the American public wants things for nearly free. Frankly,I don't see how the Chinese do what they do manage to do. I can't even buy the metal to make some of their products without it costing way more. Like,things made of angle iron. Just try to buy the angle iron for a shop cart that is similar in size to a Chinese one.

[James Carmichael]

And the point of this thread is??

There's lot's of HF stuff I'd never touch, but they do carry some useful, inexpensive items.

I purchased their "HVLP finish sprayer" (a litte blower with a spray canister on the end) years ago, and it works great. Later I noticed "reputable" retailers carrying the same item, at a higher price.

As someone mentioned earlier, those punches are throwaway tools. Lee Valley and other retailers have to carry that stuff, too. HF can undercut them on those items every time. If I'm already ordering from Lee Valley, is it worth my time to go searching the internet to save $5.00?

You may also notice those puches do not carry the Lee Valley or Veritas brand.

[Jeff Nicol]

It seems to me that if there is a product out there for sale at 10 different stores or mail order facilities, and they all look the same either you buy the cheapest or the highest priced or one somewhere inbetween. Those who buy the inexpensive one don't care where it was made, they either need it or just want it. Those in the middle usually buy them as an impulse buy because of the marketing or the placement of the display of the item, or they remember that they needed on of them a while back so they buy for next time. The one who buys the most expensive is more like the one who buys the inexpensive one, they believe because it costs more it must be better quality and do not research it any more than the others. This idea of buying the most expensive is best most times works out fine as with cars (Mercedes VS Kia) Watches (Rolex VS Timex) and many big ticket items. But if you go out and look at houses you may find a home that is $500,000 and one 3 blocks away that is comparable in size and so on, but is $300,000. Everything looks great and the fit and finish is great and they are both newly built homes. In ten years the $500,000 one starts to show signs of poor craftsmanship and things start to fail and repairs start to pile up, while the less expensive home is withstanding the test of time with grace and very few issues. This comes down to who the builder was and how much skill and care was used to build the home, the more espensive one was put up buy a big company with a lot of employees and high overhead and time is money as they say. So this house was built faster with possibly short cuts and less knowledgeable workers etc. but with the best materials. The other was built with care and pride with the cheapest materials and in the end the profit margin was a little less but the builder was confident of the house.

It was a long winded explanation, but just like with tools if you want one to last a lifetime you can buy a cheap one and take really good care of it and you are just a hobbiest and will most likely never wear it out. If you are professional and you will be using the tool to make a living, doing a little more research to make sure you are getting what you want and will be able to put it through the paces without the thought of it failing. Even then you can by a brand new anything and have it fail the next day or buy the $5.00 screwdriver that lasts 20 years.

Now for the finish! We as Americans have been forced over the years to buy what is offered, and most of what is offered any
more is an imported product many coming from the far eastern nations or South American countries. This is what happens when it is cheaper, easier, access to more emplyees, you all know the rest. If there were a better business atmosphere here IN America or even Canada those companies would still be here producing products. Even then the quality may be great or so so but the jobs would be here, and that is more important right now.

So buy what you want where you want to and if it lasts forever or a week, it may not be the price you paid for it but the way it was used or a simple flaw in the manufacturing, but trying to convince yourselve that one companies product is better just because it cost more may come back to bite you in the rearend. I have 3 welders from HF and cutting torch set, 4" grinder, die grinder, porta-bandsaw, and numerous other hand tools etc. I have never had an issue with taking them back and getting a new one or for that matter I have had only one thing fail and that was because I used it for 2 years every day and worked it hard, it paid for itself many, many times over and even with the $20 I paid for an exteneded warranty it was a third the cost of a "Brand Name" one.

Just be happy that you can live in a free country and buy whichever tool you choose, for if we loose that it won't matter at all,

Jeff

[Mark A Johnson]

Transfer Punches are much more common in the metal working, then woodworking. There are so many manufactures for these things, its hard to say. The company's my just use the same source for the bases. Or one copied the others designs, once again hard to say. MRO dealers have a catalog that is common for most dealers. Look at MSC or your local mro, and you'll see one. The catalog is worth getting, you'll find things in them that will make your life easier. Your see a transition in woodworking where metal working tools are becoming the normal. The indexing cutter heads, replacing knife heads in planners and jointer's, is just one example.

[Bill Wyko]

The HF in Tucson carries Dewalt tools. In all fairness, HF has started stocking some better quality stuff.

[Brian Ashton]

One thing comes to mind when I've read through this thread is that there appears to be levels of Chinese quality coming out of the same factory. Stationary tools I used to buy in Canada are a prime example. General International keeps the manufacturer to a certain level of standard but the same machine re-badged and different paint and on the floor in the same machine retailer is $500 less. And when you look close enough you see why... I never really experienced the disparity in quality though until I moved to Australia. In the past, in Canada, I had bought lots of Chinese tools, disposables, electronic goods, machines... and the quality wasn't bad. But I think that has a lot to do with most Canadians (at least before the GFC) held quality as maybe not the highest priority but high enough that the buyers took notice and bought from the Chinese manufacturers accordingly. The stuff I've found in this country is for the most part not worth it even if it were free. I avoid anything that doesn't have a proven name brand behind it. Price for the majority of Australians is by far the single most important factor and my guess is that buyers here negotiate on price alone and the Chinese manufacturers are giving them what they ask for. So maybe that sort of business model is what Harbour Freight is employing and they're getting what may be a good price, but the Chinese are giving them the factory seconds for it...

Another point I actively pursue is loyalty. I know I can get tools cheaper else where if I want to dig that deep... But for me I've been buying from Lee Valley from the early 80s and I (at least i feel like they openly demonstrate it...) know what a part of their vision values are: to bring the best possible quality at a fair price, and it always has been (fair price being the key words). I, especially down here, see a lot of companies that opportunistically gouge the customer and thus they don't diverse my business let alone my loyalty. The gouging, at times, has been so blatant and ridiculous that it boarders on criminal. So with a company like Lee Valley I will, and have often, pay that little bit extra (lets face it 50% difference in price amounts to $7 for those punches - big deal) and add what ever it is to the order simply because they are a company that has earned my loyalty.

[Edward Louie]

I bought my set of set of transfer punches from Lee-Valley and went to the local Harbor Freight store to compare.

Bryan you’re eyes did not deceive you they are the same product. I guess that it is not wise to generalize about vendors, after all a good craftsman does not blame his tools.

An interesting observation -

Harbor Freight's reputation for generally poor-quality items is such that I would never expect to see the exact same thing sold by a more reputable seller such as Lee Valley. However, while looking for a set of transfer punches I noticed the following:

http://www.leevalley.com/US/wood/pag...=1,43456,54892
http://www.harborfreight.com/28-piec...-set-3577.html

If those aren't the exact same items, then I must be going crazy. I guess now I've seen yet one more thing I never expected I'd see.

[David Hostetler]

An interesting observation -

Harbor Freight's reputation for generally poor-quality items is such that I would never expect to see the exact same thing sold by a more reputable seller such as Lee Valley. However, while looking for a set of transfer punches I noticed the following:

http://www.leevalley.com/US/wood/pag...=1,43456,54892
http://www.harborfreight.com/28-piec...-set-3577.html

If those aren't the exact same items, then I must be going crazy. I guess now I've seen yet one more thing I never expected I'd see.

Well, for one thing, the set sold by Harbor Freight has the "Pittsburgh" name attached to it, where the Lee Valley one doesn't. Aside from that, they look identical...

Something I have been saying for a long time, if possible, get your hands physically on the item in question, and physically inspect it. HF sells a lot of junk sure, but then again, a LOT of their stuff is the same stuff other vendors are selling for MUCH higher prices, maybe the plastics are different colors, or they lack a feature the more expensive models have or something, but generally speaking, most of this stuff nowadays comes from the same Chinese and Taiwanese factories just churning this stuff out...

I am actually fearful for the U.S. if we ever go to war with China, we depend on them so much for manufacturing now, that I don't think we could keep up with building necessary war materiale... And that is a HUGE part of what won us WW2, and won the U.S. Civil War for the Union...

[David Weaver]

Before (i hope this wasn't said) everyone starts ripping on LV for making $5 more on the punches, realize there is information that not everyone knows. If you look at alibaba where you can contact the places that sell stuff like those punches, you'll notice that there are different quantity ranges that you can get. I don't recall if they give you a price range, but if there weren't differences in prices, they probably wouldn't bother with the different quantities. If HF makes an order of transfer punches, and LV makes an order of transfer punches, it's very likely that HF's order is much larger.

There are not HF's in canada (but Crappy Tire does seem to have similar products) as far as I know, so if LV is going to carry those transfer punches in their stores, are they supposed to exclude them from their catalog if there is any lower price available anywhere?

At least bringing all of this up reminded me to look at HF for a brake caliper tool kit - I almost bought the VW single size tool online, which is well over twice HF's entire universal kit (meaning I won't need one for any of my other cars).