Harbor freight tap & die sets

[KICK]

Quality tools are nice, but very hard to justify unless you make your living with them. I have been to auctions when they sell Snap-On, and good Lord, those things go for a ton of money. Example; one little itty bitty 1/4" drive rachet with a swivel head for $50! And no sockets with it! There is no way I could justify that for something that gets used maybe 3-4 times a year. Sure, they hold their value, IF (and that is sometimes a big IF), you don't lose them first, which is sometimes way too easy to do!

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like everything in the world, there are always tradeoffs. above is a good example.

I've got quite a supply of snap on hand tools, because I got paid to use tools. I wouldn't lay out the money for them for occasional use, not worth it.

same goes for taps and dies??? how many holes are you going to thread and how expensive is it to fix if that tap breaks would be the overriding concern.

 

[KICK]

And even a Snap-On tool set doesn't do that! I know an awful lot of mechanics that are rather broke because a large part of their paychecks go to the tool dealer each week. .

guys at work used to give me $hyt because I never bought one of those 6000 dollar toolboxes. bSnap on and Mac Dealers both used to always be trying to sell me one, because I was a good customer who always paid, but I never bought one.

I always told them " my toolbox works for me, I don't work for my toolbox"

 

[mike45tx]

Soundguy, you might want to look at Northern Tool's website. Also Tylertool.com

Mike

 

[slowrev]

Soundguy, I have an SAE set of cheap taps and dies that I got a HF about 15 years ago, all are fine and I have used them quite a bit.
I recently bought a metric set at HF, these are ok but not as good of a quality as the older ones. I have primarially used them to chase threads, but have tapped a few holes as well with no problems.
Ben

 

[DieselPower]

DieselPower, I take it you must own your own repair business? Otherwise, how can you possibly afford that much in tools annually??!! That is unless you make a lot more then most mechanics I know make! As the owner of a shop with several mechanics, I can see that you might spend that much in specialized tools, and it goes a long way in explaining why it costs so much to take something in for repairs!

For better or worse that's what I do for a living. I have a mobile truck and equipment service/repair business. I didn't ever really plan on having my own business, it just kind of happened over time. I worked as a mechanic for years at shops making other people money. Over time the amount of "side work" I did seemed to keep increasing to the point I was working more at night on my own than during the day at my job. One day I just got fed up with working for other people, quit, bought a used Freightliner box truck and started doing it full time. Best carrer choice I ever made. Now I'm my own boss.

 

[whitetiger]

On the other hand.. for a guy like me that chases a thread or two while restoring an old tractor.. i think the 30$ chinese set will do fine to clean paint from old threaded holes..

If i have a 6' block of steel that needs 2" threads in it..well.. that's what machinists are for... ( that or welders... )

Soundguy

I have 2 sets of the $12.00 chen tech or something like that Chinese tap&die sets I have used for years as chasers. They work fine for what you want to do. I save the $500.00 set for when it is needed