Ordered from Harborfreight Fucking Harborfreight!
I just ordered from Harborfreight.com:
1 91310-4VGA 100 PC. SECURITY BIT SET 9.99 9.99
because I always wanted to be able to get behind those panels that I wasn’t supposed to. Not because I want to do anything bad, just because someone said, “No, you may not look here”
3 39440-5VGA PENCIL TORCH 5.99 17.97 I’ll be bringing the art of Peep Flambe to Burning Man. We had so much fun at the Chobunnpeggelly party torching peeps and making s’mores out of them, I thought the rest of the world might like to do so as well.
Update: 2 of the 3 pencil torches leaked. After the event, I tried the last remaining one and it refused to fill. I threw them all out.
1 4807-0VGA 5 PC. PRECISION PLIER SET 9.99 9.99 I’ve misplaced a pair of pliers that my grandfather owned. They’ll turn up, they’ll turn up. But in the mean time, I need some needlenose pliers for all my working with model airplanes and such.
Update: The pliers suck. The wire cutters won’t cut even 28 gauge wire.
2 42428-2VGA SPLIT LEATHER WORK GLOVES 0.99 1.98 Ninety-nine cent gloves! And they might be good gloves. They’ll probably end up being either alternative gloves for working in the shop (instead of always using my welding gloves) or go in my disaster go-bag.
Update: The leather work gloves are awful. They stink of some awful awful rubbery-chemical smell. I tried to wash the smell out and the sink turned black black for several minutes. Apparently, they hadn’t been dyed well at all. Now I have 2 pair of slightly damp, terribly smelly, color bleeding gloves. I put them in the closet inside a plastic bag to keep the smell at bay but the smell leached out and gave me a headache! I discarded them.
2 3015-1VGA 80″ x 60″ WOOL BLANKET 5.99 11.98 I had said to myself that I’d just put my sleeping bag in my go-bag but then I remembered that it was snug -inside- my duvet cover… so I’m getting a spare blanket.
Update: The wool blankets smelled like another kind of death. I tried putting them in a washing machine. The second they hit the water, the water turned bright red. The dye apparently hadn’t set. When I took them out of the machine, my hands turned red and they smelled just as horrid. I threw them out.
1 46157-1VGA SELF-POWERED AM/FM RADIO/FLASHLIGHT 9.99 9.99
disaster go-bag. I’m a bit miffed that I recently purchased a $60 Freeplay radio that appears to do everything identically.
1 47873-4VGA 16 OZ. RIP HAMMER WITH FIBERGLASS HANDLE 4.99 4.99 It’s good to have a hammer for occational tasks. It’s not a snazzy $30 hammer but an acceptable pound of steel on a stick. It’ll do.
Update: The hammer is a laughing stock. This is the pièce de résistance. How do you screw up a piece of metal on a stick? How?! I’ll tell you how. I can understand that the fiberglass handle transmits vibration poorly in a $5 hammer, I’m cool with that. But then, you make the head too convex and very smooth so that the hammer has no sweet spot; every strike glances off. You put the center of gravity far away from the head so it twists out of your hand when you miss the (non-existent) sweet spot. Friends have tried the hammer and they agreed with me.
4 40030-1VGA 2 PC. COOLMAX(TM) DISPOSABLE RESPIRATORS 3.99 15.96 For my go-bag and to be brought to the playa.
1 91214-2VGA BLUE FLAME DESIGN AUTO DARKENING WELDING HELMET 59.99 59.99 This is the only thing I -needed- in this whole order. Why did I get all that other crap? I’m getting this for my summer project MIG welding waaay too much this summer.
Update: The welding helmet works perfectly 90% of the time, making it completely worthless. 9 times out of 10 it auto-darkened instantly. That last time, it would take a full 1/4 second and I’d be fucking blinded.
May 8th, 2006 at 4:53 am
[...] Wherein Lee buys tools. [...]
May 19th, 2006 at 1:56 pm
I called Harbor Freight and they’re sending me a prepaid return label so I can return the stinky stuff to them for a refund. Though I lost some time by getting bad items, their service in correcting the problem is excellent.
May 29th, 2007 at 3:04 pm
I always have to laugh at posts like this… No one has ever claimed (in their right mind) that Harbor Freight has ‘QUALITY’ stuff…
Their stuff aint that bad… Its probably worth every penny you paid for it… and I’ll bet you ordered it from Harbor Freight because their’s was the lowest price…
I’d not advise mail-ordering from them, but find a local one if you can, and drop in…
Their return policy is great though… If you dont like it sen dit back…
July 4th, 2007 at 11:22 am
Nah… most harbor freight stuff is worth it…I wouldn’t but a welder there, but gloves, hammers, come on… it’s a fair return for low dollars.
Bought one of their table top drill press ($35 delivered…amazing). Same as the $100 Delta at Lowes. The depth gauge was broken, so I emailed the service address and had a replacement in 2 weeks. I was astonished…
John
October 21st, 2007 at 2:53 am
Baloney! It is NOT worth it. And NO, I didn’t pay less for their garbage. I bought a Riveter for a job and paid for the “best” on they had there. The rivets that came with the kit I was instralling were heavy duty (4 of them). The stupid piece of shit tool broke on the 4th rivet and the quality of it sucked. The “metal” peanut brittle it was made of broke, yes peices of metal broke all over the place. Chinese shit! So I got 3 rivets on and then left without a gun for the 4th.
My wife went and bought me a Craftsman Riveter ($2 LESSSSS expensive) and it worked GREAT! I put in 2 more rivets in other places to check it and it went smooth and professional. You could tell the quality of the American tool as opposed to the complete fucking shitty Chinese crap.
Fact is that some places are just known for good stuff and others bad stuff. American Cars inmho are not that great, Japan is great for em. But American toiols are the BEST. Chinese tools are shit period.
If you want to waste your money go buy the throwaway shit Harbor freight sells. The “Pittsburgh” brand (funny they use an American city selling great steel to sell shitty tools with brittle metal) is a joke.
I will NEVER buy tools from that store again…ever. I may buy wore or something, but never tools. They suck.
January 7th, 2008 at 2:52 pm
Kind of like facing the wind then going to the bathroom, what exactly did you expect HF to be selling? Real rivet tools cost real money, the ones at HF work find with 1/8″ rivets or spend a couple of more dollars and get the 41291 hand tool.
I’ve been buying drill bits from them for three years about once every 6 months just to see when they will get some bits that will drill a hole without wearing out, still waiting and they have always taken the burned out bits back. I own both their stick and mig welders, work fine for me with the duty cycle they published which means plan on spending a long time welding while building a trailer waiting on the welders to cool down.
While some would say they should change the name to HF JUNK most of the people that purchase from them already know what they are spending money on, besides, I’m now finding stuff at AutoZone and Sears that is priced lower then HF!
January 17th, 2008 at 11:24 am
Harbor Freight is really a hit-or-miss place with a lot of junk and a lot of bargains. Some stuff is total junk. Other stuff is a huge bargain and works just fine. Some stuff isn’t a better deal than you get at Lowe’s/HD though. It’s definitely a store for smart shoppers. If you go in there thinking everything is the lowest price or good quality, you’re going to get burned. If you’re careful what you buy, and mindful of what things cost elsewhere, you can get some great bargains.
As for Chinese tools being shit, most power tools these days are made in China, whether they’re a Harbor Freight brand or a big American or Japanese name brand like Delta, DeWalt, Craftsman, Hitachi, etc.
April 6th, 2008 at 12:39 pm
I WORK IN THE HOME CONSTRUCTION FIELD AND MY TOOL BAG CONTAINS MANY HF TOOLS. THEY SEEM TO WORK WELL. NO ONE WOULD BOTHER TO TAKE A CHEAP ASS TOOL, AND IT WOULDN’T HURT SO MUCH IF THEY DID. I CAN AFFORD TO KEEP A SPARE ON HAND.
April 6th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
I had bought all my previous items from Harbor Freight by mail order. I could imagine that walking into a store, you would have a better chance finding the things they do well as opposed to their crap. But then it’s near impossible to tell in a store if a metal product has been tempered correctly, etc…
April 18th, 2008 at 5:54 am
I bought a set of jack stands there once. One of those fuckers busted while I was under the car. Luckily, I had left the jack underneath and when the stand broke I was trapped and could hardly breathe… that Walker (American) jack saved my life. I was able to reach the jack handle, but it took a good 15 or 20 minutes to get enough ooph on the handle to jack up the car where I could escape. No more Chink shit for me. Maybe the cheap solution would be to buy a Chink car, then when it falls after the Chink jack stand breaks, the car will bend around my body with no damage to me. Sounds perfectly plausible.
April 20th, 2008 at 3:47 am
man what a crew here.Ifell in here by mistack,but would like to say in defence of HF. i have worked all my life on trucks/trailers.heavy stuff.i stand by HF. some tools are crap but you get that in all stuff. some times when the prices is right you can work that piese of sh… in to the ground and replaces it on warrenty cheaper. they have a great plan. i can beat the hell out of that stuff and replace it no problem. the big tools are a real time saver. could not afford to have half the crap to make life easyer if i paid the going rate some where else. thank god for harbor freight
May 11th, 2008 at 8:49 am
IMO, There is one in my town. I find great bargins. Quick-Grips that sell at lowes 2 for 19.97. HF, 1.99 each and I have had no problems. This is just one example. Biggest advantage you have got to shop their store that way you can see and feel the quality. Never had any problems .
May 12th, 2008 at 4:11 pm
These comments are unbelievable.
Greg, the only thing your anecdote proves is that you are a complete and utter dumbshit. Who the hell trusts their life, in an immediate and obvious way, to the absolute cheapest of the cheap? You can get away with a cheap wrench if you don’t mind stripped nuts once in a while. You really want to use a crap jackstand to lift a few thousand pounds of machinery, AND THEN CRAWL UNDERNEATH IT?
Christ, man. I’ll expect a posthumous darwin award for you.
And then you have the nerve to blame “the chinks”? Any old thing to support your stereotypes, I guess. As if ALL chinese tools come from one giant factory painted red. The only thing the chinese suppliers of harbor freight are guilty of is, when asked by an american retailer to produce a $5 rivet gun AFTER overseas shipping costs and retail markup, saying “sure thing! whatever you say!” while stifling their laughter. Of COURSE the tools are going to be shit. If you can find an american to do the same thing at the same price, you’ll still get a shit tool. You think before manufacturing all went overseas, there weren’t legions of american factories producing really cheap crap? Pay the chinese more, and their quality will come up. Until then, pay more for quality, no matter where it comes from! And stop complaining if all you look at is price! You’ve got nobody but yourselves to blame.
May 12th, 2008 at 4:45 pm
Peter, I can see your point but please write more kindly. I ask that everyone keep their comments civil.
May 22nd, 2008 at 10:17 am
i happen to work at a harbor freight so i ultimately know what is…and what isn’t junk…i will say that our hydraulics are one of our best things…and this is a MUST…you might think that the ESP (extended replacement plan) is a jip…but it’s nowhere near…especially on a $200 impact wrench or a metal lathe that’s $1000…the fact is is that all tools wear out over time no matter what brand…but sure american tools are better but look at the price comparison…most sears tools are $400 for a miter saw..while our 12″ usually goes for around $150 (estimating)…plus you get a cheap $12 replacement and bring it back if it gives out..you get 90 days to exchange it as much as you would like..and if you choose..30 days to get your money back..as if most of you thought that a $.99 pair of gloves was going to be a high quality glove…noone thinks when they go in they’re getting higher quality than american brands..but for the price comparison..it’s unmatched anywhere else..WHY? because we go straight to OUR manufacturer…we have no middle man we have the companies manufacture for US!..that’s why we can keep everything so cheap and still stay in business after the 5 month shipping overseas..we’re a growing company with over 5-6 stores opening each MONTH…and no im not trying to give you false imformation…so one thing you need everytime you get an eligible ESP tool..GET IT! (unless the tool is somewhere close to the ESP price such as our rotary tool)..thanks for reading
June 26th, 2008 at 2:26 pm
[...] can’t really trust the reliability of high-tech products from China. I started talking about Harbor Freight and he told me a [...]