Cruising through some YouTube vids for anything mildly entertaining, and I stumbled across this beaut (sarcasm.) A Brief History of Harbor Freight Tools Admittedly, I have not watched the whole thing. Bad CGI gives me headaches.
I don't like the direction this thread has taken fellas. There are many other places for political conversations, but not here on THF. I left the original post. If you want to comment about the suitability of specific harbor freight tools as they relate to foundry use fine but please keep it on topic of general foundry chat. Best, Kelly
I did not mean to offend, just thought it was slightly interesting as I did not know the origin of Harbor Freight. Maybe not the right category to post in? Not opposed to it being deleted by admin.
I don't find anything offensive about the topic. I've been buying they're stuff from their catalog since the 80s or early nineties. I think I still have the first thing I bought from them- a set of pipe clamps. Of course one of them has a half broken clamp face, but what the hell. There's a place near me that sells Amazon returns online. It's called T and T Discount and they're a couple of towns away. I've bought a lot of stuff from them over the past few years from a brand new ingersol rand compressor with a broken air filter housing to sign making supplies I resell at my print shop. Evidently Amazon returns don't get restocked, they basically get thrown away for penny's on the dollar. Anyway it's nice to see someone with an idea and some perseverance make good. Pete
Cheap tools are great when the alternative is no tools. It's called Princess Auto up here in Canada. Jeff
My first HF experience was in San Diego, CA. I was amazed. Still have & use some of the tools I bought years ago. Others, not sure what happened to them. That weed burner has got to be one of the best around. Scorched earth in seconds. Works okay for burnout too. 4 gallon backpack sprayer, SKOOKUM! Love or hate 'em, they fill a need.
I really like the idea of having bears staff the stores. So cool. They could be very helpful. (Black bears not Grizzlies. Grizzlies staff the competitors...) Robert
The bears will be smarter than the current 2 legged versions running around these stores. That's one store that only needs 1 employee to collect the money at the door. HD is like that these days. It has become the true DIY warehouse. You find it yourself, answer your own questions, you check yourself out and load it yourself. My history with HD spans back to about 1993. What a shell of it's former self. I'd pay big money to sit down and have a beer with Bernie & Arthur these days. I got to spend time with both of them in West Palm in '94. When the black bell would land in the far end of the parking lot, you could hear manager's sweat hitting the floor like it was raining! Unless you have lived the demise of a great retailer, you'll never know how good it truly WAS back in the day.
Like anything else you have to recognize their limitations. If you can find one of them they're generally pretty good at pointing you toward what you're looking for. If it's something they don't carry they generally won't have any idea what you're talking about, and even if they have it they almost certainly won't know how to use it. I have a couple of favorite guys in the hardware department at Lowes who know what they're selling, but outside of that I have to know what I'm looking for when I go in. I've used my smartphone a number of times to locate stuff at both HD and Lowes. I learned a lot from the old men in the hometown hardware stores growing up. Pete
I had the tool counter guy at the big orange box try to talk me down from buying a cheap set of taps once. Not because they are cheap and crappy, that would be good advice. But no, he said "theose are not for threading holes, they're for removing stuck screws". When I tried to set him straight, he called the plumbing aisle guy over for some reason. As I stood there with the tap and die set in my hand trying to show it to him, plumbing guy told me I can't buy a tool to thread a 1/4-20 hole there because you need a full machine shop to do that... Another time, earlier, I was trying to connect a new tub faucet I bought from HD's site. Half a dozen trips to HD to consult with their best experts had me coming home with several pounds of brass that didn't fit. One day I will imagine that same plumbing aisle guy going into the crucible with all of it. Then the 70 old lady cashier at the mom N pop hardware store much closer to home nailed it on her first guess about 30 seconds after I walked into the store after giving up on big boxes - I needed the braided hose instead, which has different threads and is much easier to install. Not thinking of that myself was annoying, but I figure I get a pass on that 'cause I don't work for the store that sells those damn faucets! I did buy the tap set, but I have rarely asked for help at the big orange box again. In all fairness though, the guy in the lighting aisle was good; he sold me a cheap 300w dimmer switch extension cord and pointed out that it would work fine for my hair dryer charcoal furnace blower control if I kept the hair dryer on its 'cool' setting. That worked great, still does; I used it with the same old hair dryer recently when I used my Hot Shot as a forced air propane burner when I had to use the Black Dread as a forge once, bending one of the sand scrapers into shape for my muller build. I'm not trying to single out any bad stores or employees, but these are true stories, and I'm sure we all have a few just like them. I deal with the local place whenever I can now, their people know what they're talking about, and luckily my area is too rural to support a big box hardware store closer to home that would put them out of business. Jeff
Jeff, I have a thousand stories about hardware store azzhats. I spent my college years as a cashier/return desk and front end manager for HD during the hey days of the depot. If you would have cut me then I would have bled orange! I saw employees get fired for not acknowledging a customer in passing down the aisles! Today they run and hide when they see you. Most are scared shitless you might ask them a question. HD back then was huge on training employees and I remember our plumbing guys were all over 60+ and most retired from the field. They were the best at setting customers up with the assorted crap needed to build one hell of a good potatoe gun. When a guy comes to a checkout line with a bbq ignitor and a bunch of pvc, you know what it was. Good times. The mom and pop stores are a dying breed, I support them as much as I can.
