Harbor Fright - cheap Chinese junk or treasure chest for the thrifty - whatever your opinion, here are some deals from this month's print ad.







For those uninitiated, you can't use the 20% coupon on top of another coupon - at least at my local store & online you can't. But pick up a can of CRC cutting fluid or WD40 while you're there & get the 20% off that

I love these free flashlights. They come with batteries. Of the dozen or so I have, every one has worked out of the package without any tinkering with contacts or other fiddling. The one I keep at the lathe has fallen onto the concrete floor countless times & still works.

The calipers are hit or miss. I have a set on my reloading bench I'd match up against a Mitutoyo for quality, smoothness, accuracy, repeatability, and holding calibration forever. I had others that were gritty or would go haywire past 2". I ended up buying 10, picked out the 3 best, & then returned the rest. The store is 5 min from the house so that was convenient. For $10, you can't go wrong - esp if you have a local store and don't mind sorting them to pick the best of a lot. Come with a battery installed & a spare battery.

The drill set is nice for $10. Average & not as sharp as you'd expect for new bits, but if you have a drill doctor or are good with sharpening on the bench grinder/belt sander, they're a good buy. After sharpening, they're as good as any other re-sharpened HSS bit to me. 1/16 - 1/2 in 64ths. The metal case is pure crap and will break from repeated opening/closing. I've used the tiny ones for pilot holes in wood often & haven't snapped one yet.

I like HF. Their torque wrenches are insanely cheap. One guy who did a comparison using a torque calibration machine found them nuts on. It's hard to arge $14.99 vs. $149.

But those Pittsburgh calipers require you close them before turning on, otherwise it'll zero wherever the jaws are. Very annoying. At least that's the way my one example functioned.

The ones I have in the garage are that way - you have to close the jaws & zero or else turn on with the jaws fully closed. The set I have on the reloading bench don't care what position they're in open or closed when you turn them on - they just stay zeroed.

They are definitely hit & miss, but if you get a good set, they're an awesome value. If you get an average set, they're still good considering the price even if you have to zero each time you turn on. If you get a bad set, they're junk and not worth keeping for any use other than as an expensive ruler.

Baffled wrote:I like HF. Their torque wrenches are insanely cheap. One guy who did a comparison using a torque calibration machine found them nuts on.

I've found that to be just the opposite. I picked up one for me and one for my son. They were both out of whack. I ended up making a torque calibrator and adjusted them both which is quite easy.

Harbor Freight is a tricky deal all the way around. There are some things I will only buy there like, Nitrile gloves in the 500 box - good deal, toggle clamps, air hose fittings, etc., power tools however are usually well below par. Cutters, saw blades, abrasives... Fugetaboutit.

HF 115 135 degree split point cobalt drill set 99.99 with 30% off coupon 80.00$. Last weekend I bought 2 sets its a steal.I love the flashlight to now have three.
I love my wife she clips coupons for me.
I have metric wrenches sold by them while not snapoff quality they work when I need them.Most of the Pittsburgh tools are fairly decent.My 129.99 cutoff band saw is over 10 years old its a pos but after I shimmed it to track and added a hydraulic arm it cuts like a champ.

Capt, I looked at those bits too, and a buddy of mine just hauled off and bought them. Turns out they're not solid cobalt but, coated or plated.

I have a small set of solid cobalt bits that I love, and would like to have 115 of them in 1/64" increments but, I don't even want to know what they might cost.

HF is my source for nitrile gloves for the workshop.

mollinst wrote:Capt, I looked at those bits too, and a buddy of mine just hauled off and bought them. Turns out they're not solid cobalt but, coated or plated.

I have a small set of solid cobalt bits that I love, and would like to have 115 of them in 1/64" increments but, I don't even want to know what they might cost.

I have a 115 set of their ti coated drills no complaints 35.00$ on sale.I also have a set of 115 piece Cleavland twist drill 15% cobalt I paid 450.00$ for on sale ten years ago.The quality of the US product is much better no doubt but a 135 split-point coated cobalt drill is still a great GP drill set for 80.00$

Oh,yes - in fact I may still pick a set up but, I'd still love to have more USA cobalt bits.

mollinst wrote:Oh,yes - in fact I may still pick a set up but, I'd still love to have more USA cobalt bits.

I've got a pretty major drill collection for my shop, housed in a big Huot cabinet. There are drawers for wire, letter, and fractional drills, and each space can hold up to dozens of drills in that size.

Here's a good way to get a kick-ass drill collection... it takes time. Get sets of decent HSS drills in both jobbers and screw length, fill up your slots. Get examples of cobalt drills in the important fractionals, like 1/8", 1/4", etc. Also, a handful of straight-flute, solid carbide drills, also in the important fractionals, up to about 3/8".

Take a list of important tap drill sizes, like #4, #6, #8, etc, and buy packs of 10 or 12 from MSC or Grainger.

As sales come along, if there is an insane deal on, say, a screw-length wire gauge set, buy the set, populate the cabinet, and throw away the cheap container they came in.

Now, when you have a task, the slot in the cabinet has a selection of drills to choose from. Do I need HSS, screw or jobber, or must I unleash that straight flute carbide job? As bits die, they get moved to a junk drill box for hand-drilling jobs or resharpening.

The key is in a nice cabinet with room for a large number of drill bits. Overall, I am a big fan of quality HSS shiny drills, USA-made like LaTrobe, for the majority of tasks.

I had a buddy buy a set of HF drills, the cheap black oxide jobs, and when mounted in a drill press, you could see the wobble in the tip. They were worse than bad, they were dangerous and would ruin work.