Harbor Freight Tools that don't suck

[gyrogeerloose]

Question, if I bought a vacuum from HF that didn't suck, which thread would I post it on?

At work, we bought two cheap HF 5-gallon wet vacs to help with an emergency clean-up of several hundred gallons of spilled hydraulic fluid mixed with water. Not only did they not suck (in the metaphoric sense), they worked great. Even after abusing them horribly for nearly a week, they were still ticking. Still are, a year later. I might get one for myself.

I'm a maintenance guy at a company that extracts salt from seawater via solar evaporation. As you might suspect, all things made of ferrous metals rust away very quickly in that environment so it's pretty pointless for us to buy top-quality tools when we know that they'll become useless due to rust long before they will ever have a chance to wear out. So, naturally, we buy a lot of stuff from Harbor Freight. Some of their stuff it surprisingly good--the wet vacs I mentioned above, for one. I can also vouch their better-quality Pittsburgh (Pittsburgh Pro?) combination wrenches; nicely finished and they fit fasteners at least as well as a Craftsman wrench does.

On the other hand, there's the steel-handled claw hammer that failed in a rather interesting way as I was pulling some 16d duplex nails recently. It didn't just break suddenly, it felt as if the "steel" handle turned into something the consistency of a nice block of cheddar cheese first. On examination, the broken end showed signs of metal fatigue, which surprised me since the thing was almost new.

 

[jimtnc]

DetroitTom - mind if I ask you how you supported thet 880# hoist from HF?? I'd like to get something like that fo rmy shed to work on my tractor, but I don't want it coming down on me from bad supporting.

 

[TerryJ]

I bought a 5 piece set of Pittsburg channel lock type pliers. They work as well as the real channel lock brand that I own and at half the price. I've had them for over a year and use all of them on a regular basis. A good buy if you ask me.

 

[Rowdius]

I bought a very little used howse shredder off ebay for $350 the other day for "exploring" dubious areas. The quick attach yoke on the pto was very rusted, so I could not hook it up to the tractor. I scrubbed off the rust on the splines, but the ball bearings were rusted in place. So, I took the quick attach collar apart, polished the ball bearings, and tried to put it back together. The collar is held on by a rectangle wire formed snap ring without holes. Pretty heavy duty, and much harder to put on than to take off. Ended up breaking my small pair of snap ring pliers after a couple of hours of fighting, cussing and yelling at the stupid thing.

The next day I bought a set of large snap ring pliers for $12 at HF. These are pretty dang big, and they lock shut/open with a racheting system. Pretty neat.

The snap ring was on the pto shaft 45 seconds after I opened the package.

Of course, this is something I'll probably only use a few times a year.

 

[Travelover]

DetroitTom - mind if I ask you how you supported thet 880# hoist from HF?? I'd like to get something like that fo rmy shed to work on my tractor, but I don't want it coming down on me from bad supporting.

I got locked out of TBN when I changed my email address and had to change my screen name and start over as Travelover.

My little barn has a second floor, so there are 2x8 floor hoists that run crosswise in the ceiling of the first floor. I bought some extra 2x8s and sistered two adjoining beams. I mounted the 880# winch between them with metal strapping.

It groans a little when I really lift something heavy, but it is plenty strong

 

[jimtnc2002]

Okay thanks for the reply. I got locked out also so I had to change my login. What's with all of this?? Anyway, my shed has a 10' loft that covers half the length, but it has 3/4" plywood on it so that part is not useable. I thought about running some 2x10 across the 12' span, but then you get into the wood twisting and possibly cracking under stress...which could be dangerous.

My point is your building is probably a more rigidly built structure than mine. That's why I've been thinking of a portable steel hoist/lift support that's only 7-8' feet wide and should not buckle if the metal is good enough. I'm not sure which way to go now.

 

[NewCubGuy]

I've bought several tools from Harbor Freight and only one of them has been any good. Its a "Chicago" 3/4 hp bench grinder. Its done very well. The worst was a die grinder which I could stop with my hands.

 

[patrick_g]

Ended up breaking my small pair of snap ring pliers after a couple of hours of fighting, cussing and yelling at the stupid thing.

The next day I bought a set of large snap ring pliers for $12 at HF. These are pretty dang big, and they lock shut/open with a racheting system. Pretty neat.

The snap ring was on the pto shaft 45 seconds after I opened the package.

Of course, this is something I'll probably only use a few times a year.

Sounds like money well spent even for the one use. In your situation it would have been worth it to me to pay twice that if I could have had them to start with. I sure hope you got the thing running OK.

Pat

 

[jimtnc]

Has anyone heard anything about this shop crane:
Harbor Freight Tools - Quality Tools at the Lowest Prices

I'm about to buy it unless there's something faulty with it I need too know. Thanks.

 

[patrick_g]

Has anyone heard anything about this shop crane:
Harbor Freight Tools - Quality Tools at the Lowest Prices

I'm about to buy it unless there's something faulty with it I need too know. Thanks.

I have that same crane. Normal assembly effort. Works just fine. Doesn't roll over loose gravel (well of course not!) I have used it to pick up my welder, generators, and such to load and unload in pickup bed. Just raise them up and drive under. Sweet.

It does take a lot of handle pumping to raise but it has good lift power (speed vs power is tradeoff on all these regardless of mfg.

I took the hook off the end of mine, ripped a 2x4 to size and shoved it down the square tube and strapped another 2x4 under the tube, bridging, with significant overlap, between the square tube and the 2x4 sticking out of the end of it. I then attached a rectangular 2x4 (picture frame looking thingy) to the end of the protruding 2x4. I put a pair of cross braces on the 2x4 "picture frame" separated by the thickness of the protruding 2x4. I put a bolt through the two braces to pin it to the protruding 2x4 and allow the picture frame to pivot. The pivot point is off center so it tends to rotate back toward the operator at the rear of the machine. I attached some scrap sheet metal fingers to the far side of the picture frame (picture frame is about 3x7 feet.)

When you lower the whole thing to the floor and rotate the picture frame so the metal fingers touch the floor you can place a 4x8 sheet of whatever on the fingers and then rotate the frame and the over center pivot point keeps the load more or less horizontal. I then jack up the sheet and attach it to the ceiling joists with screws.

I recently did a little remodel on a 21x48 ft shed which was open on the one long side. I installed a drop ceiling using 4x8 sheets of fiber cement (instead of sheetrock) to get terrific fire retardant qualities. Fiber cement is heavy and fairly flexible and was a real PITA to try to install without a material lift device. With the crane and the accessory mod I was able to easily raise the sheets into place and attach them. The picture frame automatically pivots to align with the slope of the joists as you raise the sheet into place. Full control, no panics, super easy to use, really glad I had the crane to do the work.

After I finished hanging a tad over 1000 sq ft of ceiling I just pulled the mod off the crane and rebolted on the hook so it is ready for whatever lifting.

About the slow lift with lots of tedious handle pumping... This is not a failure of the HF unit, it is just the way it is, the equivalent of really low gearing to enable you to lift heavy things easily. Harbor freight sells a hydraulic cylinder that is shop air operated with manual backup. I bought one and put it on the crane. It fit like it was made expressly for the crane (I think maybe it was.) It made lifting things as easy as pressing an air control button. I can still pump it manually if I want to like if it were more hassle to get air to it than to just do it manually. The manual only cylinder that came with the crane has a nice large knurled spring loaded handle to control the lowering of the crane. The nice air operated cylinder has the traditional relief valve turned with the slots in the end of the pump handle and it is slightly less handy. I will be taking a look to see if the nice valve can be substituted for the traditional one.

Meanwhile I have used the manual cylinder to adjust steel door frames in a metal building (35x70x18 feet) that I moved. I poured cast concrete thresholds for the 3 man doors and the door frames are secured by the threshold so I had to position them where they would be from here on out.

Reader's Digest version: I have one. I have used it a lot and it works just fine. I got it on sale for less than the price in your posted link. For the price you won't go wrong, Jim.

Pat