30% off Harbor Frieght


 
Recently I have not been happy with stuff I bought from HF. Sand paper. Really crappy quality. Disintegrated immediately and did not even last half as long as the sand paper I bought at my local wood working store. Same for Dremel like accessories. The litte wire brush I bought to polish brass and metal hinges on an old trunk disintegrated immediately. I guess you get what you pay for.
There is this saying: buy cheap buy twice. For HF it is more like buy cheap buy 5 times if you continue to buying from them.
 
Ive always called harbor freight " the cheap chinese tool store"

Some things are ok, some are ok for limited use, some are pure junk.
You need to be able to assess whether any item is ok for you, and if you should pony up for a quality brand item.

Ive had gear pullers.....snap. screwdrivers strip shaft from handle, brad nailer that jams frequently, oil filter wrench that adjustment pivot slipped on, soldering gun failed, etc, etc, etc.

I view many things as single-use purchases.
 
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MartinB said:
Ive always called harbor freight " the cheap chinese tool store"

Some things are ok, some are ok for limited use, some are pure junk.
You need to be able to assess whether any item is ok for you, and if you should pony up for a quality brand item.

Ive had gear pullers.....snap. screwdrivers strip shaft from handle, brad nailer that jams frequently, oil filter wrench that adjustment pivot slipped on, soldering gun failed, etc, etc, etc.

I view many things as single-use purchases.
Click to expand...

Martin,

I am just a CPA and not a highly experienced tool guy. I think Harbor Freight was made for me. I have some decent DeWalt tools and I have a number of HF tools. I always say that if you use a tool - especially a power one - on a very regular basis, stick with the quality brands. But if you only use the tools occasionally - which would be the case for me for most tools - then give Harbor Freight a look. I have bought two cheap grinders (but not the REALLY cheap one), and they both work fine for what I do. The better one even has a paddle switch. For me to spend 3X as much doesn't make sense, but if I were grinding every day it possibly would.

One last thing I have noted is that I think HF is trying to up their rep. They are featuring more better quality (still chineseum as Larry would say) tools. I have a few wrench sets that are of course no Snap-On/Matco,etc. but I think they are as good or better than today's Craftsman, Kobalt, etc. I do agree that their low-end stuff is pretty sketchy, and perhaps even their "Hercules" higher end won't prove out over time. On the other hand, the only tool of theirs that I broke (which was probably my fault for expecting too much from it) they cheerfully replaced with no questions asked.
 
Stefan H said:
Recently I have not been happy with stuff I bought from HF. Sand paper. Really crappy quality. Disintegrated immediately and did not even last half as long as the sand paper I bought at my local wood working store. Same for Dremel like accessories. The litte wire brush I bought to polish brass and metal hinges on an old trunk disintegrated immediately. I guess you get what you pay for.
There is this saying: buy cheap buy twice. For HF it is more like buy cheap buy 5 times if you continue to buying from them.
Click to expand...

Stefan, I agree up to a point. You have to be wise about your purchases. But, HF does have a place in my garage. A lot of times, for tools that don't get a lot of hard use, they HF stuff is a great value. Other than the Angle grinders and wire cup brushes, I can think of my 3 ton floor jack. I paid $70 for that and it does what I need it to. I could get a Dewalt or Snapon or some other $300 jack and likely, it would last longer than the HF one. But, my guess is, I will cease doing my own oil changes and under vehicle work before my HF jack gives out. So, why pay three or four times as much when both tools will likely outlive me anyway.

I bought a 12ton bottle jack for $19 to replace my truck OEM jack. I don't expect it to be used more than a few times in it's life, so I saw no reason to invest in a name brand one that cost 3 times as much.

I will say, the wire cup brushes I use for my grills are not the best quality, but at less than $4 each, four of them will outlast a $16 name brand brush. There is plenty of stuff I would not buy at HF however.
 
I have also a variety. I have some very high end tools (especially going back to my mechanic days) but, than those are all SAE and nothing is SAE anymore. Everything is metric plus I haven't owned an American "branded" vehicle in over 3 years. Everything has been Asian (Infiniti, Toyota and daughter has a Lexus). Though funny thing is one of my Toyotas and her Lexus are more "American" than the last American car I owned which IIRC came from either Mexico or Canada. One of the Highlanders I own and daughter's Lexus are both American made. Go figure
Anyway I have nice stuff Bosch, DeWalt, Milwaukee but on lesser used things HF. And the scroll saw I just bought used is a Dremel.
As for hand tools much as I hate buying from the Chinese and Taiwan I have to give them (especially Taiwan) their due. They're making some very fine quality tools. I always overlooked the "rough" quality of Crapsmen tools because they were US made. But now they're very poor quality at best and Chinese. I would rather buy a better quality Asian made hand tool from HF or Kobalt (which BTW is the consumer side of SnapOn) and decent quality for the $$$.
Sure HF has some garbage but really for the $$$$ it's kinda hard to beat them
 
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