On Tue, 14 Apr 2015 15:31:46 -0700, Bob La Londe wrote:

Harbor Fright Down Grades Quality Again

I've got a couple Harbor Fright Drill press. One is a floor model. Its
not wonderful, but its atleast 15 years old and it works. Once you
learn a few tricks you can drill decent holes. The other is a 12 speed
bench model. In some ways its better than the floor model. I keep a
tapping head in that one. I tap a lot of 10-32 holes in aluminum with
it. It was the smallest least expensive drill press I could find that
had a regular MT2 taper, and it works great for what I use it for.
Tapping holes.

Lloyd gave me a good deal on another tapping head a little bigger than
the one I had. I figured I would set it up, and just leave a 1/4-20
machine tap in it since that's the second most common hole I tap. I was
thinking another one of those Harbor Fright 12 speed bench toppers would
do the trick, so I started hunting for a coupon or a sale. Finally I
found an outfit that would "sell" me a coupon for it for $5. Since it
would save me $40 if it wasn't bogus I figured it was worth a shot. I
printed my coupon and checked on-line to make sure the coupon code was
good. Off to Harbor Fright to buy my drill press. There were none on
display, but there was one below in a box. I opened up the box to make
sure everything was there, and noticed the head didn't look right. I
checked further and found it doesn't have an MT2 taper anymore. Its got
that stupid fixed BT16 spindle taper instead. The one that is on the
smaller cheaper drill presses. Just to be double sure I looked at the
manual. Yep. They downgraded the unit a LOT and didn't lower the
price.

I left the coupon on the box for the next guy.

I have a friend who calls it "Cheap Ass Tools". Everyone knows what he
means.

--

Tim Wescott
Wescott Design Services
http://www.wescottdesign.com