Harbor Freight and its Product Manuals

[railfancwb]

A lot of people - including me - have poked fun at Harbor Freight concerning quality of merchandise.

However, I don’t recall ever being unable to download a users manual for one of their products if I have their model number. On rare occasions they have had to upload one for me.

I just downloaded a product manual directly from their website copyright 2005.

The Harbor Freight manuals may not be the equal of what Sears provided for its owned-name brand products such as Craftsman and Kenmore but they are good. Nostalgia for Sears and its products in their heyday probably flavors this comparison. Until very recently, if at all, Sears product manuals were not available for download free of charge.

To go back to my original lead-off, Harbor Freight has been aggressively introducing its own premium brands in some lines. I’ve aged out of the major tool buying/using part of my life so have no experience with Harbor Freight’s premium brands. 

[Fog]

Hazard Fraught tools is the new Sears and Craftsman.

Goes to show how effed up the business model for Sears was. They had it all and totally screwed the pooch.

Guy who owns Hazard Fraught sued his own dad to get control of the company. He's now very rich, selling American suckers chinese crap.

I do own some stuff from there, pains me every time I use it.

 

[Huaco Kid]

7) Makes conductive scheduled product.

[jmohme]

1 hour ago, Fog said:

Hazard Fraught tools is the new Sears and Craftsman.

Goes to show how effed up the business model for Sears was. They had it all and totally screwed the pooch.

Guy who owns Hazard Fraught sued his own dad to get control of the company. He's now very rich, selling American suckers chinese crap.

I do own some stuff from there, pains me every time I use it.

 

Harbor Freaght is not the new Sears.  In ist day, the name Sears name represented quality products, not Chinese knock offs.       

Sears was the pre internet Amazon. If they would have been paying attention and embraced the internet when it started showing signs of life, Amazon quite possibly never would have taken over.   Sears really screwed up.

[Silentpoet]

My tig welder is a Vulcan Protig 205. It will do just about anything I want below 1/2 inch all the way down to foil thickness metals.   I have their generator too and it always starts up when I run it.

Yes I would rather own a Miller Dynasty, but this will do 90 plus percent of the same stuff.

[DAKA]

3 hours ago, railfancwb said:

A lot of people - including me - have poked fun at Harbor Freight concerning quality of merchandise.

However, I don’t recall ever being unable to download a users manual for one of their products if I have their model number. On rare occasions they have had to upload one for me.

I just downloaded a product manual directly from their website copyright 2005.

The Harbor Freight manuals may not be the equal of what Sears provided for its owned-name brand products such as Craftsman and Kenmore but they are good. Nostalgia for Sears and its products in their heyday probably flavors this comparison. Until very recently, if at all, Sears product manuals were not available for download free of charge.

To go back to my original lead-off, Harbor Freight has been aggressively introducing its own premium brands in some lines. I’ve aged out of the major tool buying/using part of my life so have no experience with Harbor Freight’s premium brands. 

SOME of their tools are OK, especially for a job you may only do once  (The tool may last till the job is done.....if you hurry)   

Then again the price of Snap On of any of the "quality" tools has gone crazy, and some of that is not great also  Craftsman was the best...IN ITS DAY 50 years ago

[janice6]

My daughter worked for Home depot and convinced me that for tools it's Home Depot.  They have the same warranty that Sears had in their hey day.  If it fails they will replace it free.  She says they also replace batteries for their battery operated tools if the battery fails.  Where else?????

I bought a John Deer riding mower from them and a couple years later I tore one of the bags.  I went to them to price a replacement and they said "just bring in the torn bag and we will replace it free".  This is the kind of service I can support.

[DAKA]

7 minutes ago, janice6 said:

My daughter worked for Home depot and convinced me that for tools it's Home Depot.  They have the same warranty that Sears had in their hey day.  If it fails they will replace it free.  She says they also replace batteries for their battery operated tools if the battery fails.  Where else?????

I bought a John Deer riding mower from them and a couple years later I tore one of the bags.  I went to them to price a replacement and they said "just bring in the torn bag and we will replace it free".  This is the kind of service I can support.

Home Depot and Loews are across the street from each other here, but H/D gave me a hard time about Veterans discount, Loews was easy so guess what  

[DWARREN123]

Well, if you don't like to buy Chinese stuff then don't. The only reason they sell Chinese stuff is people buy it!

[railfancwb]

2 minutes ago, DWARREN123 said:

Well, if you don't like to buy Chinese stuff then don't. The only reason they sell Chinese stuff is people buy it!

If you think shopping at Home Depot or Lowe’s or the nearby well stocked “shop local” store will protect you from buying Chinese made product think again. And look at the fine print. 

[GT4494]

Have a Harbor Freight almost across the street. Saying that I will state that if I need consumables IE. stirring sticks , one use brushes or sandpaper items, they are the place to go.  I try to stay away from their power tools.  Cheap chinese hand tools are great to carry in the car because if I can use them once they paid for themselves.  Hand tools at the house are mainly OLD craftsman. 

One step up is Northern Tools but they also just sell a higher grade of Chinese tools.  I realize that almost every tool made is now forged in china. 

Heck even the new modernized engine block for my Model A is forged and machined in china.  The engineer could not find a US factory that could do them and still have a price that people could afford to pay. American made would put the price at $10K instead of the $4K they can sell it for.  And thats just a BARE block!  

We have done it to ourselves.  We lost the affordability edge and may never get it back.

[DAKA]

1 hour ago, railfancwb said:

If you think shopping at Home Depot or Lowe’s or the nearby well stocked “shop local” store will protect you from buying Chinese made product think again. And look at the fine print. 

Remember when JAPANESE stuff was CRAP    

[DAKA]

1 minute ago, GT4494 said:

Have a Harbor Freight almost across the street. Saying that I will state that if I need consumables IE. stirring sticks , one use brushes or sandpaper items, they are the place to go.  I try to stay away from their power tools.  Cheap chinese hand tools are great to carry in the car because if I can use them once they paid for themselves.  Hand tools at the house are mainly OLD craftsman. 

One step up is Northern Tools but they also just sell a higher grade of Chinese tools.  I realize that almost every tool made is now forged in china. 

Heck even the new modernized engine block for my Model A is forged and machined in china.  The engineer could not find a US factory that could do them and still have a price that people could afford to pay. American made would put the price at $10K instead of the $4K they can sell it for.  And thats just a BARE block!  

We have done it to ourselves.  We lost the affordability edge and may never get it back.

There is/was a video posted here about making a huge nut on a lathe, when they were opening the boxes of tooling materials I think it said make in Korea???

[jmohme]

1 hour ago, DAKA said:

Remember when JAPANESE stuff was CRAP    

Difference being that we were buying Japanese products and complaining that it was all crap, but doing so long after the war where they were killing our soldiers, were defeted and were trying to recover economically.

We are buying Chinese products and funding there plans to use against us now and in the future. (This is the definition of fucked up!)

like  DWARREN123 said "if you don't like to buy Chinese stuff then don't.".  Not always easy to do, but when given the choice, I will pay more for the product not made by those bastards. And other times I have been know to do without when there is no choice.

But it is next to impossible to not buy china made products in our day to day lives.

[DAKA]

1 minute ago, jmohme said:

Difference being that we were buying Japanese products and complaining that it was all crap, but doing so long after the war where they were killing our soldiers, were defeted and were trying to recover economically.

We are buying Chinese products and funding there plans to use against us now and in the future. (This is the definition of fucked up!)

like  DWARREN123 said "if you don't like to buy Chinese stuff then don't.".  Not always easy to do, but when given the choice, I will pay more for the product not made by those bastards. And other times I have been know to do without when there is no choice.

But it is next to impossible to not buy china made products in our day to day lives.

One thing I try VERY hard NOT TO BUY is any FOODSTUFF that comes from CHINA 

[railfancwb]

1 hour ago, GT4494 said:

We lost the affordability edge and may never get it back.

Not to worry. Some folks got filthy rich buying companies using their own cash and credit, hollowing them out selling everything to China et al, maybe taking the stripped hulk public once again.

Regardless of affordability the United States could no longer be the arsenal of democracy in another world war. It and its NATO subordinates are about tapped out due to Ukraine. We don’t even have significant strategic oil reserve any more. 

[DAKA]

3 minutes ago, railfancwb said:

Not to worry. Some folks got filthy rich buying companies using their own cash and credit, hollowing them out selling everything to China et al, maybe taking the stripped hulk public once again.

Regardless of affordability the United States could no longer be the arsenal of democracy in another world war. It and its NATO subordinates are about tapped out due to Ukraine. We don’t even have significant strategic oil reserve any more. 

Thanks JOEY you POS     

(Yiddish expression removed)

 

Curses in Yiddish are like no other ...I didn't think this was appropriate  (actually I did but I removed it anyway)

 

[gwalchmai]

10 hours ago, DAKA said:

Curses in Yiddish are like no other ...I didn't think this was appropriate  (actually I did but I removed it anyway)

Curses you believe in should never be written down. 

[DAKA]

51 minutes ago, gwalchmai said:

Curses you believe in should never be written down. 

[jfost11]

16 hours ago, DAKA said:

One thing I try VERY hard NOT TO BUY is any FOODSTUFF that comes from CHINA 

Someone gave my daughter a Harry Potter themed color changing cocoa mix set for Christmas last year. It was from China. I would have tossed the whole thing but she just had to try it. After one sip she said it was bad. I explained where it was made and what the process and time-line looked like for it to get here. Then I asked her if she thought that was a good idea for food. She said no and later threw it away herself.