Harbor Freight Tools that don't suck

[orangebluegreen]

I have this reciprocating saw and have been happy with it. Thought if it just made it through the rebuilding of my pole building I would be happy which it did with no problems and no signs of trouble or wear. Plenty of power and speed adjust works well. Only complaint is more slack in the bearing to shaft fit than seams like there should be but doesn't wobble when the blade is on the surface and really is not noticeable in use.
I only paid $16-19 (forget which) and not a remanufacture. The advantage of having a local store is there are often lower prices and sales in the store than online.
Harbor Freight Tools - Quality Tools at the Lowest Prices

Have bought some varying bar clamps and c-clamps all of which have been ok, not great but ok, probably no worse than anything you'll find anywhere else.

Deep well impact sockets absolutely recommended.

Bought a low to the ground roll around padded seat with small tool shelf below the seat. Got it home and found all the plastic for the tool shelf was broken. Cheaper to rivet it all back together than drive back to return but ticks me off that the box was opened so they must have known the condition.

I have looked at this digital caliper and will likely be my next purchase, appears to be well enough made. Looks like the exact same caliper the parts store sells at double the price of HF. If anyone has experience with it good or bad please post.
Harbor Freight Tools - Quality Tools at the Lowest Prices

 

[patrick_g]

I have looked at this digital caliper and will likely be my next purchase, appears to be well enough made. Looks like the exact same caliper the parts store sells at double the price of HF. If anyone has experience with it good or bad please post.
Harbor Freight Tools - Quality Tools at the Lowest Prices

The digital caliper looks like the one I got from HF. Mine works fine. I got over a year out of the battery and then installed, just this week, the spare they provided. I also have an all stainless steel dial caliper, American made, high quality, works fine but I use the HF digital now. Easier to read and has all the same features otherwise. I ordered the digital fractional caliper recently. Well see how that goes. I'll report my experience with it.

Pat

 

[California]

I ordered the digital fractional caliper recently.

Keep your eyes open. There's one rated only 1/10" precision (or maybe 1/16", .0625??) that I decided I couldn't use for anything. I took it back.

I have a 'General' dial caliper, made of tool-quality plastic. It's excellent. Since I'm not a machinist, it's all I need. I wish I could find another. Call me old fashioned, but I'm not about to replace this with something that needs a battery annually.

 

[gemini5362]

Keep your eyes open. There's one rated only 1/10" precision (or maybe 1/16", .0625??) that I decided I couldn't use for anything. I took it back.

I have a 'General' dial caliper, made of tool-quality plastic. It's excellent. Since I'm not a machinist, it's all I need. I wish I could find another. Call me old fashioned, but I'm not about to replace this with something that needs a battery annually.

Unless yours has a digital readout the advantage to the HF one for us old guys is not having to try and see little bitty close together marks. It is a lot easier to read that nice digital display

 

[Dargo]

Deep well impact sockets absolutely recommended.

Ooh, that one had to go on the "sucks" list for sure with me. My IR 1/2" impact absolutely shatters them. I have to list HF impact sockets as flat out dangerous. Sorry, but HF impact sockets are yet another item from there that nearly got me injured. If they are dangerous they're not worth "free" to me.

 

[orangebluegreen]

Ooh, that one had to go on the "sucks" list for sure with me. My IR 1/2" impact absolutely shatters them. I have to list HF impact sockets as flat out dangerous. Sorry, but HF impact sockets are yet another item from there that nearly got me injured. If they are dangerous they're not worth "free" to me.

I'm using a half inch IR composite IR-2131A (600 ft-lbs rev 450 ft-lbs forward) and no problems, so far at least after about 3-4 years of intermittent use.

Mine are deep wall and very thick. I know they have a lot of different sets so not sure if they're all built the same? Been a while since I've looked at them in the store but memory seems to make me believe the shallow ones were not as thick. I've used it on motorhome nuts that have stalled the gun at over 100 PSI and so far no prob. The smaller ones never come close enough to torque that would hurt them. I've had non-impact sockets of any manufacturer shatter before with an impact and it's no fun, good way to lose an eye.

 

[RobJ]

These are cool if you don't lose them, I bought 4 and gave 2 away. $.99

Harbor Freight Tools - Quality Tools at the Lowest Prices

 

[Dargo]

I'm using a half inch IR composite IR-2131A (600 ft-lbs rev 450 ft-lbs forward) and no problems, so far at least after about 3-4 years of intermittent use.

I walked out to the barn to see the model number on my impact. It's an IR 2135Ti. The manual says it has 780 ft. lbs reverse and 550 ft. lbs forward. Here's a link I had stored from where I looked it up before I bought it 2135Ti-2MAX 1/2" Impactool™ Ext. Anvil

Maybe that's just enough of a difference to shatter their deep well impact sockets in the 1/2" range. The ones from HF don't look any thinner than the set I bought from Snap On except the ones from HF look like pot metal when they shatter. I do have a 3/4" IR impact that is a real beast. I use it for heavier equipment I have. I honestly never considered buying any impact sockets from HF for it.

 

[patrick_g]

Keep your eyes open. There's one rated only 1/10" precision (or maybe 1/16", .0625??) that I decided I couldn't use for anything. I took it back.

I have a 'General' dial caliper, made of tool-quality plastic. It's excellent. Since I'm not a machinist, it's all I need. I wish I could find another. Call me old fashioned, but I'm not about to replace this with something that needs a battery annually.

I have a good American made dial caliper I can use if the battery dies at an inopportune time in the HF unit. I can read the dial on the caliper but the LARGE digital readout on the HF unit is way easier.

HF site currently lists two digital readout fractional calipers. Accuracy on the both is +/- 0.001 and that is certainly good enough for me. I can use a micrometer if I need better. I want the fractional unit for woodworking to save doing all the math converting from decimal to regular fractions all the time.

Pat

 

[Iplayfarmer]

Ooh, that one had to go on the "sucks" list for sure with me. My IR 1/2" impact absolutely shatters them. I have to list HF impact sockets as flat out dangerous. Sorry, but HF impact sockets are yet another item from there that nearly got me injured. If they are dangerous they're not worth "free" to me.

Come now, Dargo. If you use them with the HF impact wrench as they were intended, there's no danger of breaking anything... Including breaking loose a nut that's stuck.

 

[Lanse]

I will never again buy a thing from HF. Last summer i bought a battery charger from them, broke after two weeks. Recentally i got a set of 3 tire irons from them, one broke and nearly took my head off. Its a wonder they havent been sued by someone mamed by their crap. While back we used that charger for target practice. An improvement, now it doesnt work and it doesnt look like it will either. I envy you guys who can use this stuff without destroying it

 

[buckeyefarmer]

I found these metal shears to work good. I only needed them for one project.

Harbor Freight Tools - Quality Tools at the Lowest Prices

 

[Bedlam]

Lance her is a post of HF that sucks.
http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/parts-repairs/114375-hf-tools-suck.html

 

[patrick_g]

I will never again buy a thing from HF. Last summer i bought a battery charger from them, broke after two weeks. Recentally i got a set of 3 tire irons from them, one broke and nearly took my head off. Its a wonder they havent been sued by someone mamed by their crap. While back we used that charger for target practice. An improvement, now it doesnt work and it doesnt look like it will either. I envy you guys who can use this stuff without destroying it

You have to apply a little filtering and not just buy anything in the store assuming it will be fine for your needs. I have literally thousands of dollars worth of HF stuff. Most of it serves or served me well. They have stuff that I would NEVER even consider buying. So they have the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Unfortunately, every so often they have something that may look OK (even to the cautious citizen) and not be. They have a decent return policy. They have extended warranty that gives you exchange privileges, no wait for repair, no shipping, no hassle on some items. Some are so cheap a failure is an inconvenience but not economic disaster.

If you can't navigate through the varying levels of quality and accept the risks then maybe you should shop where you clearly get higher quality goods, even though at significantly higher prices.

At the grocery store if I saw a bin marked Mushrooms $1.49/half pound next to a bin marked Mushrooms??? $.59/pound I would probably buy from the high priced bin.

I also have several Milwaukee tools varying in age from over 30 years to a couple weeks and they are about as good as power tools get but are not cheap. I consider the tool, its apparent robust quality, the cost, inconvenience if it fails and so forth and buy accordingly everywhere from HF junk to top of the line American.

Pat

 

[Charlesaf3]

I've had some annoying experiences with HF (breaking stuff) in the last few weeks, so am a bit annoyed with them currently.

But "I have bought HF stuff before thinking that if it turned out really useful before it broke or went awry, I could buy a "real one" and am still waiting for it to break or mess up and force me to buy a real one." sums it up well - Patrick has a lot of wisdom on this thread.

Don't buy HF stuff if you'll be annoyed if it breaks. For me, if a carpenter kills a HF tape at $2, I'm a lot happier than when the stanley eats it.

One question - I did buy jack stands from them. Was that a really bad idea? My thought was, "how can you mess up a jack stand" but really cheap metal would do it... Anyone have any experience before I trust them?

Just bought the radio remote control winch - I'm going to try to mow my steep hill with that and a gravely 12. Should be interesting... Another of my "is it genius or profoundly idiotic" ideas - but I figure I can duck rolling gravely's.

 

[patrick_g]

One question - I did buy jack stands from them. Was that a really bad idea? My thought was, "how can you mess up a jack stand" but really cheap metal would do it... Anyone have any experience before I trust them?

Charles, I have used their jack stands for years. I have never had a failure that was not due to a stupid move like not pulling the stand before driving away, using a stand to prop up a timber and try to drive up the board, or some such nonsense. No problem with any of their jack stands in normal service like when I am under thousands of pounds of steel.

So I have bent but never broken HF jack stands but through stupid moves not normal use and never endangered anyone. I think if anyone had ever got crushed under a vehicle held up by a failing jack stand that the court settlement would be as common knowledge as the idiot broad who burned her crotch on hot coffee.

Pat

 

[Dargo]

One question - I did buy jack stands from them. Was that a really bad idea? My thought was, "how can you mess up a jack stand" but really cheap metal would do it... Anyone have any experience before I trust them?

I have a bit of a different take on jack stands from HF than patrick_g. Being that I've experienced first hand the poor metals used in HF stuff, there is no way I'm going to trust my life to something from HF. Sorry, but it just isn't going to happen. Take the sockets that shatter with my impact. They are every bit as thick as the Snap On impact sockets I replaced them with. The Snap On sockets obviously cost more, but they have never broken. The HF sockets appeared to be made with pot metal when looking at the shattered pieces. Since I don't get any "do overs" with my life, I figure I'm worth an extra $20 or so to buy some quality jack stands. Everything from HF is a throw away item. My life isn't a throw away item; at least not in my mind. You'll never catch me trusting my life to a known poor quality item from HF. As I've said before, I've wasted a few hundred bucks over the years on junk from there trying to find the occasional bargain, but I certainly wouldn't spend thousands there by any means nor would I trust my life to anything sold there. As always, be safe.

 

[patrick_g]

You'll never catch me trusting my life to a known poor quality item from HF.

Aye, therein lies the issue. We have no evidence that their jack stands are poor quality materials. I have considerable evidence that their jack stands can be abused and not break or crack. I have bent and otherwise distorted them from severe misuse, doing things that would be expected to bring out the worst in any design, American or American fabricated in China.

Sockets, especially impact sockets, are typically hardened which is a process that to be successful requires proper alloys probably heat treated correctly with proper care. Sockets are actually much higher tech by far than jack stands.

Luckily, lives do not typically depend on a socket because they can and do fail. I don't recall ever personally breaking a socket of any kind, even the cheap Taiwan 1/4 inch drive sets they give away for free for opening a checking account. (Probably Chinese now.)

So where do we stand? I have abused the heck out of HF jack stands and they have never cracked or broken. You have broken HF sockets. How applicable is breaking sockets which are hardened and much more prone to breaking in predicting the likelihood of a soft metal jack stand to fail catastrophically?

I don't like to live on the edge or take big chances with my life nor recommend such actions to others. Quite the contrary, I am usually the guy being laughed at for taking strong pro safety stances. I'm the guy being accused of being a girlie man or a "hand wringer" because I take a stand in favor of safe practices.

In this instance I just don't see the applicability of judging a jack stand by your socket experience. The technology and metallurgy are so dissimilar as to prevent experience in one being a good predictor of experience in the other . They are not strongly correlated.

Stated more simply, the lower tech the item the less chance HF manufacturing sources will have screwed it up. You don't get a lot lower tech than a jack stand.

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to convince you to use a HF jack stand but I would like to hear why you think your experience with sockets is a good predictor of jack stand performance/safety and would be more valuable than hands on experience in "destructive testing" of HF jack stands.

Pat

 

[Iplayfarmer]

I will never again buy a thing from HF. Last summer i bought a battery charger from them, broke after two weeks. Recentally i got a set of 3 tire irons from them, one broke and nearly took my head off. Its a wonder they havent been sued by someone mamed by their crap. While back we used that charger for target practice. An improvement, now it doesnt work and it doesnt look like it will either. I envy you guys who can use this stuff without destroying it

Keep in mind that HF doesn't have the monopoly on cheap crap goods.

I decided to "play it safe" and buy my second battery charger from the local auto parts store for almost twice as much rather than risk it at HF. Two months later I was back in there because it wasn't charging batteries anymore. They sincerely expressed thier empathy with my misfortune and extended their moral support in encouraging me that I can probably tinker and fix it after I take it back home. (i.e. They wouldn't take it back)

Lesson learned: Cheap chinese crap is all around us. At HF it costs less and they are excellent at returning it and/or exchanging it.

 

[patrick_g]

A nice marine quality battery charger (well over 20 years old) with outputs to handle three batteries had the tupperware lid blow off in a storm and the box filled half way with water submerging the unit while it was operating. Needless to say, it had electronic control board problems. Three terminal transistors with one terminal eaten off and that sort of thing.

I thought to toss it but with all the junk on the market I may make it a project to rebuild it. A challenge but not impossible given my background.

Pat