Don't ask to Borrow my tools

brien23

brien23

Cleared for Takeoff
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Brien
Don't ask to Borrow my tools I only buy the best, Harbor Freight.
 
Harbor Freight tools is much better quality then Craftsman this days. I like their toll boxes, the only problem i have no more room for it.
 
Even their Pittsburgh Professional line is pretty decent, at least for non-professionals. For a guy like me who uses them once or twice a week at the most, they’re fine.

A number of years back, someone did a side-by-side with Pittsburgh Pro and Craftsman ratchets, including taking them apart to look at the guts, and torquing until they broke. The Pittsburgh ratchet had better-quality materials, more ratchet teeth and took more torque until it failed. Although, both went way beyond what that size wrench would ever be used for, so that was essentially a wash.
 
HF depends on what you buy. Some stuff is fine other stuff is junk fortunately most of it is cheap enough that you can find out without much worry.
 
We were banging on something a few years back. Every tool is a hammer except a screwdriver, which is a chisel. We pulled out a screwdriver from an old tool box, the thing had a wooden handle and looked like it came from WWII. We started pounding on it to use it as a chisel, and sure enough the handle broke. I do remember taking it to a local Sears and getting for free a brand new screwdriver. That's a warranty. No wonder they're gong out of business.
 
Large simple things from harbor freight (jacks, jack stands, tool boxes, machine stands, etc)? Hell yes!

More complex things from harbor freight (mills/lathes/grinders/drill presses)? Not so much.

Years ago, my dad, my dad's best friend, and I went to a nearby harbor freight store. They had a table-top mill there that was a direct, 100% copy of a name brand mill. My dad's friend was an engineer for the company that made the name brand mill, and he pointed out that his company had made a mistake when they built the mills, putting a bolt in the wrong place, that was later in production moved to a correct location (so that all of the named brand mills had a threaded hole in a spot that served absolutely no purpose). Sure enough, the harbor freight mill had the same threaded hole!
 
Slavcha said:
Harbor Freight tools is much better quality then Craftsman this days. I like their toll boxes, the only problem i have no more room for it.
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Oh yeah for sure! Craftsman has really deteriorated in quality. Dad and I will go over to HF when they run their big sales every now and then. Lots of good products that are comparable to the higher name brands.

Now, Snap-On... that's another story. I don't see how they get some of the prices they ask for their products. They're good tools, don't get me wrong, but they're $$$.
 
Honestly, I could buy 3 of the same tool for the price of 1 good quality one. And alot of times the cheaper ones last. Especially tools you are not using all the time.
 
There wrenches are not to bad, not the screwdrivers. For a screwdrivers KLINE is the best in my opinion.
 
There is gulf of difference between tools made in Taiwan verses China.

Capri Tools in Los Angles is coming on strong. These are ISO ASME grade tools made in Taiwan. https://capritools.com/

Their swivel socket set is first rate and accesses Continental exhaust cylinder studs without grinding.
 
I've got a Chicago electric, HF, 4&1/2" angle grinder from >10 years ago..

Came with extra brushes... Don't know where the brushes are... Grinder still works... Won't die.
 
Some of the HF hand tools are decent. I have a couple of the HF torque wrenches that work well.

Power tools are a roll of the dice. My HF disc grinder, bench grinder, and drill press get infrequent use and have been fine for many years. The HF welders are crap. The component heat sinking and stress ratings are awful and they have poor or non-existent fault protection, so they burn up.
 
Slavcha said:
Harbor Freight tools is much better quality then Craftsman this days. I like their toll boxes, the only problem i have no more room for it.
Click to expand...
Craftsman hasn't been a tool company in decades. Sears would just apply the name (to some good stuff, to some junk) over the years. When the vultures started ripping apart Sears for any value they could cash in on, the name was sold to Stanley/Black and Decker so they could put it on their stuff. Stanley actually makes some stuff they put the Craftsman name on in Texas. To further complicate the mess, Stanley licensed Lowe's to put the Craftsman name on an entire line of Chinese crap (formerly bearing their Kobalt branding).

Actually HF makes some reasonable stuff and some junk lust like Sears had. I'm using a bunch of random Pittsburgh-branded stuff now to supplement my old "bought at Sears n the heydey" mechanics tools. On the other hand some of their other stuff is egregiously bad crap. The brother of our company's founder loved HF and would by all kinds of junk there, including a drill press that was unusable because you couldn't lock the table in place so that it didn't move while you were working and a pair of bolt cutters whose jaws were so soft they deformed the first time I tried to use it.
 
flyingron said:
Craftsman hasn't been a tool company in decades. Sears would just apply the name (to some good stuff, to some junk) over the years. When the vultures started ripping apart Sears for any value they could cash in on, the name was sold to Stanley/Black and Decker so they could put it on their stuff. Stanley actually makes some stuff they put the Craftsman name on in Texas. To further complicate the mess, Stanley licensed Lowe's to put the Craftsman name on an entire line of Chinese crap (formerly bearing their Kobalt branding).
Click to expand...


Yep. I have a box full of Craftsman hand tools I bought 25 years ago and the quality is outstanding. It is NOT the same stuff as the junk labeled Craftsman today.
 
CharlieD3 said:
I've got a Chicago electric, HF, 4&1/2" angle grinder from >10 years ago..

Came with extra brushes... Don't know where the brushes are... Grinder still works... Won't die.
Click to expand...

Agreed I use the same angle grinder frequently. My Cutoff saw I have had for about 10 years only issue I had was when one of the wires worked its way out of the switch. I went a bought another saw, but before I opened disected mine to figure out if I could fix what was wrong which was simply re-insert the wire and tighen down the screw that held it. Returned the new saw, and am still using the old one.

I also love my Rotary Hammer. I should have bought one a long time ago for drilling holes in concrete.

Brian
 
Walboy said:
Harbor Freight owner is worth $3.1 Billion. He started the business with his dad. There's money to be made in cheap tools...apparently.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Smidt
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I always liked them for "disposable" tools, i.e., things I'd likely lose before I wore it out. Screwdrivers, tape measures, etc...

When I lived up in Northern Virginia, my local store had a very liberal idea of throwing anything that wasn't 100% pristine into the "Scratch and dent" shelf. I've got all kinds of neat things for pennies on the dollar because someone busted open the packaging. I have a nice toolbox that I use to carry ammo to the gun range that as near as I can tell the only thing wrong with it is someone removed the cardboard "sanitized for your protection" ring that was wrapped around it. Alas, my store here in NC isn't so liberal.
 
Walboy said:
Harbor Freight owner is worth $3.1 Billion. He started the business with his dad. There's money to be made in cheap tools...apparently.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Smidt
Click to expand...

Not surprising at all. They’ve been at it a long time. They started with really cheap Chinese made junk. Buying it for nothing and selling into a much higher funded market. The quality and breadth of the product line has expanded well. He couldn’t help but get rich with it.
 
flyingron said:
Craftsman hasn't been a tool company in decades. Sears would just apply the name (to some good stuff, to some junk) over the years. When the vultures started ripping apart Sears for any value they could cash in on, the name was sold to Stanley/Black and Decker so they could put it on their stuff. Stanley actually makes some stuff they put the Craftsman name on in Texas. To further complicate the mess, Stanley licensed Lowe's to put the Craftsman name on an entire line of Chinese crap (formerly bearing their Kobalt branding).

Actually HF makes some reasonable stuff and some junk lust like Sears had. I'm using a bunch of random Pittsburgh-branded stuff now to supplement my old "bought at Sears n the heydey" mechanics tools. On the other hand some of their other stuff is egregiously bad crap. The brother of our company's founder loved HF and would by all kinds of junk there, including a drill press that was unusable because you couldn't lock the table in place so that it didn't move while you were working and a pair of bolt cutters whose jaws were so soft they deformed the first time I tried to use it.
Click to expand...
Kobalt was made by one of the truck tool brands, Mac or SnapOn... Can't member which.


It is a second class line for them... But not junk.

CharlieD3 works for Lowe's, and this he knows.
 
Depends what it is. Kobalt is just Lowe's moniker along with Utilitech (which is almost universally garbage), Allen+Ross, etc.... Like a box of chocolates, you never know what you are going to get.
 
I don't have any tools, IA's are not require tools.
 
It is not that HF tool are all that great, it is more that the rest of the tool manufactures are now absolute garbage making HF look not all that bad by comparison for their price.

They certainly have their place at times.
 
I still recall the first time I went to Harbor Freight (Tallahassee); I was simply amazed at how utterly terrible the tools were. Contrast with now, when many of their tools are pretty decent.

As for the Kobalt comments, they were decent for a while, now same old adequate China junk. If I’m buying China junk, I’m getting it cheaply at HF.

Craftsman went to crap after Kmart bought Sears with the already-formed plan of liquidating brands and assets. I’m encouraged by Stanley Works’ plan to build a large tool plant here.

And I love ❤️ Klein tools.
 
SCCutler said:
I still recall the first time I went to Harbor Freight (Tallahassee); I was simply amazed at how utterly terrible the tools were. Contrast with now, when many of their tools are pretty decent.

As for the Kobalt comments, they were decent for a while, now same old adequate China junk. If I’m buying China junk, I’m getting it cheaply at HF.

Craftsman went to crap after Kmart bought Sears with the already-formed plan of liquidating brands and assets. I’m encouraged by Stanley Works’ plan to build a large tool plant here.

And I love ❤️ Klein tools.
Click to expand...
They are all made by the same chinaman
 
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