Harbor Freight Tools that don't suck

[Gale Hawkins]

Well If if get FORCED to Paducah on Black Friday (think I am loosing that battle currently) I am going to make a run for a cheap set of LARGE adjustable wrenchs.:thumbsup:

Going to buy another set or two the very very very long screw driver sets in both the skinny and very heavy duty sizes. There are few jobs where they are not a time saver.

 

[Iplayfarmer]

That name looked familiar so I looked in my ebay Saved Sellers. I have Empire listed with the note 'HF Returns'. He's in upstate NY.


I also found the one I was thinking of near Nashville: Tadd Wholesale in Lebanon Tennessee. He must be huge. There are over 2,000 items in just the Tools section of his Completed Auctions.

Tadd Wholesale - Completed - Tools. There are a few HF items in there. The prices are surprisingly high, for example a HF orange angle grinder missing the guard and wheel sold for around $14 with shipping.

I also searched on Welders in his active auctions and saw several HF welders, all missing various pieces. Didn't see any bargains.

Yeah. Not many bargains on ebay for HF stuff. I don't know what people think they are buying for those prices.

On another note, I scanned the HF black Friday deals, and didn't find anything to get too excited about. I guess I'm keeping my $$ this year.

 

[Skyco]

What I hate is when I see a drill master 4.5 inch angle grinder, for $35, plus $30 shipping on ebay.... Wonder what kind of paint thinner he as sniffing when he posted that.....

The guy sniffing thinner is the guy that BUYS it.

 

[deereman75]

The guy sniffing thinner is the guy that BUYS it.

Good point.

 

[Gale Hawkins]

I think it is easy to buy blindly on Ebay like at any auction. At least at HF you can touch it and get a sense. I plug in any tools with 120 volt motors before I leave the parking lot because a return is 100 miles round trip.

Thankfully I did not have to go to Paducah so no Black Friday HF run but I did pick up a 24" steel pipe wrench with max 3" wide jaws at True Value Hardware for $19.97 that looks like this one. General Tools 1494 24-inch Straight Iron Pipe Wrench | eBay

My point is there are more places selling cheap China tools what once only had name brand tools. I wanted the wrench to use tomorrow and the trip to HF was going to cost about nother $20 and I was already at the location of the TV store.Lowes did have a real Cresent 24" adjustable wrench (not pipe wrench like I bought today) that was marked down from $129 to only $99

 

[Travelover]

Today, I put in a negative review on the pneumatic mini needle scaler cause when it sits, ya need to whack the heck out of it with a plastic hammer to get it to run, especially in cold weather. They are supposed to be posted in 5 days, so we'll see. :thumbsup:.

UPDATE:
I rated the needle scaler two stars, but Harbor Freight still posted the review exactly as I had written it. They also posted the review right away in Facebook. I'd be interested to hear if anyone else has had their negative reviews published or repressed.

 

[mikietoo]

I've been buying HF stuff for over 30 yrs and mostly they have decent stuff. I have socket sets in 1/4, 3/8 and 1/2 in both SAE and Metric that are over 30 yrs old. I don't use them every day but I use them and don't baby them including occasionally using an impact wrench. I have one ratchet that is acting up (hard to switch sometime). Over all, decent stuff and good service. We have a store in town now but for years, I did mail order.:thumbsup:

 

[Dargo]

Is that US General toolbox in HF's ad the decent one or the one that is complete junk?

I have to ask because it is my firm opinion that about 70% of what HF sells is simply trash and the other 30% are those pleasantly surprising decent deals.

 

[tnmike]

The big General toolbox is very good. High quality.

 

[Dargo]

The big General toolbox is very good. High quality.

Cool, thanks. I've been to HF and thought one brand of toolbox they carry seemed to be of pretty decent quality but it would be a compliment to call the other brand "junk". Our local store quit trying to keep one on display because everything on it kept breaking when people tried to just open and close the drawers. The other brand probably weighed 4X as much too. I may go grab me one of those $150, sale price, boxes.