New Harbor Freight multifunction tool
 

Those of you who said you needed a variable speed multi tool now won't
have to go to the big $$ brands for what you need. The variable speed
HF tool is on sale for $59.99, #67537. The speed range is listed at
10K to 20K RPM (or wiggles per minute, WPM?) but I have no idea
whether sub 10K is useful or not or even available in other tools. At
20% of the price of Fein this is an even better way to try out the
system. BTW, my $39.95 model is still doing nicely. Plan to do some
home made blade mods next week after unexpected nail encounters.

Joe

New Harbor Freight multifunction tool
 

On Jan 26, 2:57*pm, Joe wrote:
Those of you who said you needed a variable speed multi tool now won't
have to go to the big $$ brands for what you need. The variable speed
HF tool *is on sale for $59.99, #67537. The speed range is listed at
10K to 20K RPM (or wiggles per minute, WPM?) but I have no idea
whether sub 10K is useful or not or even available in other tools. At
20% of the price of Fein this is an even better way to try out the
system. BTW, my $39.95 model is still doing nicely. Plan to do some
home made blade mods next week after unexpected nail encounters.

Joe

This is one of the few HF tools I would recommend. I have the old non-
variable speed one and it is great.

Post back on your blade mods.

I will soon have the need to cut the nails on my outlet boxes and
can't think of a better tool to use.

New Harbor Freight multifunction tool
 

Joe writes:
Those of you who said you needed a variable speed multi tool now won't
have to go to the big $$ brands for what you need. The variable speed
HF tool is on sale for $59.99, #67537. The speed range is listed at
10K to 20K RPM (or wiggles per minute, WPM?) but I have no idea
whether sub 10K is useful or not or even available in other tools. At
20% of the price of Fein this is an even better way to try out the
system. BTW, my $39.95 model is still doing nicely. Plan to do some
home made blade mods next week after unexpected nail encounters.


Have they improved the blade mounting system?
Blades coming loose seemed to be the only common complaint of the
non-variable HF multifunction tool....

$59.95 does sound like a good deal relative to the Fein.
I don't see how Fein can get away with selling their multitools at
prices in the $400-800+ range. In fact, I just saw on Amazon that the
Fein FSC 2.0 (which includes maybe a dozen blades) has a list price of
$1,022 and a retail price of $817.

Can it really be worth 10-20x the price of the Harbor Freight tool?
We are not talking about a 500 pound cabinet saw or other large
precision power tool. It really is just a vibrating motor on a
stick.

Can even a pro carpenter justify spending that much for what is still
essentially a non-precision rough-carpentry tool? At that price, it
would be one of the most expensive tools on any jobsite for something
that is not used nearly as much as other staples like a skill saw,
drill/driver, contractor saw etc. Plus at that size and price, who would
want to take the risk of it "walking off the job site" or otherwise
getting lost?

I just don't see how that type of price differential can be justified
except in perhaps a couple of niche situations where money is no object.

New Harbor Freight multifunction tool
 

Joe writes:
Those of you who said you needed a variable speed multi tool now won't
have to go to the big $$ brands for what you need. The variable speed
HF tool is on sale for $59.99, #67537.

Where do you see it on sale?
I just see it for the "list" price of $79.99

New Harbor Freight multifunction tool
 

blueman wrote:

Can even a pro carpenter justify spending that much for what is still
essentially a non-precision rough-carpentry tool? At that price, it
would be one of the most expensive tools on any jobsite for something
that is not used nearly as much as other staples like a skill saw,
drill/driver, contractor saw etc. Plus at that size and price, who
would want to take the risk of it "walking off the job site" or
otherwise getting lost?

I just don't see how that type of price differential can be justified
except in perhaps a couple of niche situations where money is no
object.

Because they can?

Saw an expose recently where a high-end audio company (Lexicon) was
purchasing BlueRay drives (retail $500), replacing the case, and charging --
wait for it now -- $3,500.00. The engineers disassembled both models and
found them to be identical.

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/...-charges-3500/

This is an even bigger rip-off than Monster Cables.

New Harbor Freight multifunction tool
 

blueman writes:

Joe writes:
Those of you who said you needed a variable speed multi tool now won't
have to go to the big $$ brands for what you need. The variable speed
HF tool is on sale for $59.99, #67537.

Where do you see it on sale?
I just see it for the "list" price of $79.99
OK - although all of the catalogs and online prices mention the price as
$79.99, it is on sale in the stores for $59.99

I bought one (they actually took $20 off the price of it so it was $39.99
and another $10 off another item if I in turn agreed to buy a $29.99
Inside Track membership which I guess they are pushed to sell -- so
basically I got the membership for free).

Quality looks good. In particular, in addition to adding variable speed
it seems to have "solved" some of the complaints with the earlier model,
including:
- Raised 'dots' that engage with holes in the attachments, allowing for
positive locking of the attachment which prevents the slipping that
reportedly plagued the regular model which needed the screw to be
wrenched down real tight to avoid slipping
- Pretty quiet -- quieter than a pad sander
- More ergonomic shape

In terms of actual use, I only played with it for a few minutes using it
to test cut a 1x4 and to do some light sanding of a some pine. It worked
nicely in that short trial.

For $60 it seems like a good investment and a great bargain relative to
the Fein.

Has anybody else had experience with it?

New Harbor Freight multifunction tool
 

blueman wrote in
:

blueman writes:

Joe writes:
Those of you who said you needed a variable speed multi tool now
won't have to go to the big $$ brands for what you need. The
variable speed HF tool is on sale for $59.99, #67537.

Where do you see it on sale?
I just see it for the "list" price of $79.99
OK - although all of the catalogs and online prices mention the price
as $79.99, it is on sale in the stores for $59.99

I bought one (they actually took $20 off the price of it so it was
$39.99 and another $10 off another item if I in turn agreed to buy a
$29.99 Inside Track membership which I guess they are pushed to sell
-- so basically I got the membership for free).

Quality looks good. In particular, in addition to adding variable
speed it seems to have "solved" some of the complaints with the
earlier model, including:
- Raised 'dots' that engage with holes in the attachments, allowing
for
positive locking of the attachment which prevents the slipping that
reportedly plagued the regular model which needed the screw to be
wrenched down real tight to avoid slipping
- Pretty quiet -- quieter than a pad sander
- More ergonomic shape

In terms of actual use, I only played with it for a few minutes using
it to test cut a 1x4 and to do some light sanding of a some pine. It
worked nicely in that short trial.

For $60 it seems like a good investment and a great bargain relative
to the Fein.

Has anybody else had experience with it?


Thanks for posting that info.