No big news for here. There was a Harbor Freight ad in
Scientific American this month. It had a coupon for the
Harbor Freight multi-function tool at $35. Actually I
skipped that, I didn't want to cut up my magazine. But
they had a URL to get it off of the net. So I got it
and yesterday I went out and bought one. I haven't
done a real job with it yet, but I hooked it up to try.
I cut a cube out of the corner of a scrap of 2 X 4 in
less than a minute. It had straight sides and sharp
corners, and it was great. This thing really is
a great tool.

Bill

a few days ago some one posted www.hfreviews.com here. Add your results
to that page.

Bill Gill wrote:
No big news for here. There was a Harbor Freight ad in
Scientific American this month. It had a coupon for the
Harbor Freight multi-function tool at $35. Actually I
skipped that, I didn't want to cut up my magazine. But
they had a URL to get it off of the net. So I got it
and yesterday I went out and bought one. I haven't
done a real job with it yet, but I hooked it up to try.
I cut a cube out of the corner of a scrap of 2 X 4 in
less than a minute. It had straight sides and sharp
corners, and it was great. This thing really is
a great tool.

Bill

*This thing really is
a great tool.

Bill

HF isn't my source of choice but they do have a few pretty good
deals. At a finish carpenters suggestion I bought one of their cheapo
18 gauge finishing nailers several years ago. It is getting beat up
from use but is hanging in there with my old Porter Cable (Porter
Cable - $160/HF - $29.95 weekend sale). I figured it would take some
of the use stress off of the PC and it has.

My best buy was one of their weekend sale mortise machines. I almost
felt guilty buying it for $99 because I figured it would fall apart in
the back of my pickup before I got home. But guess what? It cuts
square holes, lines them up fairly well, has enough power, and the
chisels provided with it were pretty good. Delta chisels are
interchangeable. The table and hold down mechanism are crap that can
be improved but I haven't done it yet. In ten years and a fair amount
of use I have replaced the switch.

Other than that, they are a good source for latex gloves, air hose,
some air tools, etc. IOW, I am not a total HF snob.

On 1/28/2010 9:31 AM, RonB wrote:

Other than that, they are a good source for latex gloves, air hose,
some air tools, etc. IOW, I am not a total HF snob.

Cheap clamps, which can be put in harm's way without any worry, and
double sided tape, are both a couple of other bargains at HF.

--
www.e-woodshop.net
Last update: 10/22/08
KarlC@ (the obvious)

On Jan 28, 8:39*am, Bill Gill wrote:
No big news for here. There was a Harbor Freight ad in
Scientific American this month. *It had a coupon for the
Harbor Freight multi-function tool at $35. *Actually I
skipped that, I didn't want to cut up my magazine. *But
they had a URL to get it off of the net. *So I got it
and yesterday I went out and bought one. *I haven't
done a real job with it yet, but I hooked it up to try.
I cut a cube out of the corner of a scrap of 2 X 4 in
less than a minute. *It had straight sides and sharp
corners, and it was great. *This thing really is
a great tool.

Bill

FYI - You got my curiosity up. Just a couple I ran across quickly:

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=106605

http://lumberjocks.com/reviews/822

Might have to drop in HF next time I'm in Joplin.

RonB

"Swingman" wrote

Cheap clamps, which can be put in harm's way without any worry, and double
sided tape, are both a couple of other bargains at HF.
--
Yep, I had the job recently of having to derust a bunch of metal that had
been stored improperly. Before ,when I did this job like this, I had a
helper hold the material while I ran the angle grinder with a wire brush.
This time I had to do it alone. I bought some HF clamps. built a couple
clamping jigs out of scrap and started my job.

I ended up destroying a couple clamps. But the others are fine and the job
was actually accomplished in less time than if I had some human help.

RonB wrote:
On Jan 28, 8:39 am, Bill Gill wrote:
No big news for here. There was a Harbor Freight ad in
Scientific American this month. It had a coupon for the
Harbor Freight multi-function tool at $35. Actually I
skipped that, I didn't want to cut up my magazine. But
they had a URL to get it off of the net. So I got it
and yesterday I went out and bought one. I haven't
done a real job with it yet, but I hooked it up to try.
I cut a cube out of the corner of a scrap of 2 X 4 in
less than a minute. It had straight sides and sharp
corners, and it was great. This thing really is
a great tool.

Bill

FYI - You got my curiosity up. Just a couple I ran across quickly:

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=106605

http://lumberjocks.com/reviews/822

Might have to drop in HF next time I'm in Joplin.


Or you could visit the stores in Salina, Shawnee, Topeka, and Wichita.

We recently completed a roof/siding repair an a two story studio type
home. Imagine one large box (the second story) sitting next to a
smaller box (the first story).

Where these two met the roof leaked. On the day were removed the
siding to inspect the flashing, it was about 45 degrees. I determined
that we needed to cut into the existing commercial style SBS flat
roof, and since it was so cool, it was like cutting marble. We
chopped at it with our sharpened bars and roofing hatchets, but since
it had been repaired incorrectly so many times it had a real thick
layer, almost and inch and a half thick, of built up tar, scrim, and
other repair materials.

In a moment of inspiration/desperation, I remember that little tool
sitting brand new in its box on my front seat.

I put the 1 1/2" blade in it, and it buzzed right through all that
roofing like it was butter! I cut out three large pieces with the
machine, and it never balked. The kicker was that in cutting through
the piled on roofing gunk it ground the teeth off the blade almost
immediately. But that meant that when I cut through the roof, it
couldn't cut the plywood underneath with no teeth, so the decking was
safe!

One of my guys was so impressed that he wanted to continue to play
with the tool. He took that same blade (I have already replaced it -
they are $5) and cleaned off all the hard asphalt and mastic on the
base flashing along the wall. Cleaning the base flashing is usually a
tedious, on the knees, difficult job with a sharpened bar and
hammer.

This little thing buzzed off all the crap on the flashing in no time.
And the flashing was extra clean as the guy cleaning it was having a
blast.

We cleaned the tar and sealant off the little machine, and it now has
it own HF ballistic carry bag ( $7 ) that was purchased when the blade
was replaced.

I don't know what else I will do with this little machine, but if I
don't use it for anything else, ever, it had paid for itself as a
roofing repair tool.

Robert

On 1/28/2010 11:29 AM, wrote:
We recently completed a roof/siding repair an a two story studio type
home. Imagine one large box (the second story) sitting next to a
smaller box (the first story).

Where these two met the roof leaked. On the day were removed the
siding to inspect the flashing, it was about 45 degrees. I determined
that we needed to cut into the existing commercial style SBS flat
roof, and since it was so cool, it was like cutting marble. We
chopped at it with our sharpened bars and roofing hatchets, but since
it had been repaired incorrectly so many times it had a real thick
layer, almost and inch and a half thick, of built up tar, scrim, and
other repair materials.

In a moment of inspiration/desperation, I remember that little tool
sitting brand new in its box on my front seat.

I put the 1 1/2" blade in it, and it buzzed right through all that
roofing like it was butter! I cut out three large pieces with the
machine, and it never balked. The kicker was that in cutting through
the piled on roofing gunk it ground the teeth off the blade almost
immediately. But that meant that when I cut through the roof, it
couldn't cut the plywood underneath with no teeth, so the decking was
safe!

One of my guys was so impressed that he wanted to continue to play
with the tool. He took that same blade (I have already replaced it -
they are $5) and cleaned off all the hard asphalt and mastic on the
base flashing along the wall. Cleaning the base flashing is usually a
tedious, on the knees, difficult job with a sharpened bar and
hammer.

This little thing buzzed off all the crap on the flashing in no time.
And the flashing was extra clean as the guy cleaning it was having a
blast.

We cleaned the tar and sealant off the little machine, and it now has
it own HF ballistic carry bag ( $7 ) that was purchased when the blade
was replaced.

I don't know what else I will do with this little machine, but if I
don't use it for anything else, ever, it had paid for itself as a
roofing repair tool.

Robert
That's one thing I like about a lot of the Harbor Freight tools.
I bought a reciprocating saw for $20 a few years ago. I had a
job to use it on. Doing that job paid for the tool. And it is still
working just fine. So that all my other uses are basically
free, except for the blades.

Bill

wrote in message
...
We recently completed a roof/siding repair an a two story studio type
home. Imagine one large box (the second story) sitting next to a
smaller box (the first story).

Where these two met the roof leaked. On the day were removed the
siding to inspect the flashing, it was about 45 degrees. I determined
that we needed to cut into the existing commercial style SBS flat
roof, and since it was so cool, it was like cutting marble. We
chopped at it with our sharpened bars and roofing hatchets, but since
it had been repaired incorrectly so many times it had a real thick
layer, almost and inch and a half thick, of built up tar, scrim, and
other repair materials.

In a moment of inspiration/desperation, I remember that little tool
sitting brand new in its box on my front seat.

I put the 1 1/2" blade in it, and it buzzed right through all that
roofing like it was butter! I cut out three large pieces with the
machine, and it never balked. The kicker was that in cutting through
the piled on roofing gunk it ground the teeth off the blade almost
immediately. But that meant that when I cut through the roof, it
couldn't cut the plywood underneath with no teeth, so the decking was
safe!

One of my guys was so impressed that he wanted to continue to play
with the tool. He took that same blade (I have already replaced it -
they are $5) and cleaned off all the hard asphalt and mastic on the
base flashing along the wall. Cleaning the base flashing is usually a
tedious, on the knees, difficult job with a sharpened bar and
hammer.

This little thing buzzed off all the crap on the flashing in no time.
And the flashing was extra clean as the guy cleaning it was having a
blast.

We cleaned the tar and sealant off the little machine, and it now has
it own HF ballistic carry bag ( $7 ) that was purchased when the blade
was replaced.

I don't know what else I will do with this little machine, but if I
don't use it for anything else, ever, it had paid for itself as a
roofing repair tool.

Robert

Nice story Robert.

I surmised that you purchased this mystery tool from Harbor Freight.

Any chance you could share with us the identity and cost of said mystery
tool? ;-)

Might have to drop in HF next time I'm in Joplin.

Or you could visit the stores in Salina, Shawnee, Topeka, and Wichita.

Too far. We live in the SE corner of Kansas and Joplin is about an
hour's drive.

We used to live in Wichita and their store is much larger than Joplin
but 120 miles away. Other locations mentioned are 120 to 220 miles.

RonB

Lee Michaels wrote:
wrote in message
...
We recently completed a roof/siding repair an a two story studio type
home. Imagine one large box (the second story) sitting next to a
smaller box (the first story).

Where these two met the roof leaked. On the day were removed the
siding to inspect the flashing, it was about 45 degrees. I
determined that we needed to cut into the existing commercial style
SBS flat roof, and since it was so cool, it was like cutting marble.
We chopped at it with our sharpened bars and roofing hatchets, but
since it had been repaired incorrectly so many times it had a real
thick layer, almost and inch and a half thick, of built up tar,
scrim, and other repair materials.

In a moment of inspiration/desperation, I remember that little tool
sitting brand new in its box on my front seat.

I put the 1 1/2" blade in it, and it buzzed right through all that
roofing like it was butter! I cut out three large pieces with the
machine, and it never balked. The kicker was that in cutting through
the piled on roofing gunk it ground the teeth off the blade almost
immediately. But that meant that when I cut through the roof, it
couldn't cut the plywood underneath with no teeth, so the decking was
safe!

One of my guys was so impressed that he wanted to continue to play
with the tool. He took that same blade (I have already replaced it -
they are $5) and cleaned off all the hard asphalt and mastic on the
base flashing along the wall. Cleaning the base flashing is usually
a tedious, on the knees, difficult job with a sharpened bar and
hammer.

This little thing buzzed off all the crap on the flashing in no time.
And the flashing was extra clean as the guy cleaning it was having a
blast.

We cleaned the tar and sealant off the little machine, and it now has
it own HF ballistic carry bag ( $7 ) that was purchased when the
blade was replaced.

I don't know what else I will do with this little machine, but if I
don't use it for anything else, ever, it had paid for itself as a
roofing repair tool.

Robert

Nice story Robert.

I surmised that you purchased this mystery tool from Harbor Freight.

Any chance you could share with us the identity and cost of said
mystery tool? ;-)

He's replying to a post about the HF Multimaster clone. I don't have the
HF, I've got the original, but understand where he's coming from completely.
It does all manner of odd things well.

On 1/28/2010 12:28 PM, RonB wrote:


Might have to drop in HF next time I'm in Joplin.

Or you could visit the stores in Salina, Shawnee, Topeka, and Wichita.

Too far. We live in the SE corner of Kansas and Joplin is about an
hour's drive.

We used to live in Wichita and their store is much larger than Joplin
but 120 miles away. Other locations mentioned are 120 to 220 miles.

RonB

I assume then that Tulsa is also too far. I know there are people from
Coffeyville who occasionally drive down to Tulsa for shopping.

Bill

On Jan 28, 9:42*am, Swingman wrote:
On 1/28/2010 9:31 AM, RonB wrote:

Other than that, they are a good source for latex gloves, air hose,
some air tools, etc. *IOW, I am not a total HF snob.

Cheap clamps, which can be put in harm's way without any worry, and
double sided tape, are both a couple of other bargains at HF.

--www.e-woodshop.net
Last update: 10/22/08
KarlC@ (the obvious)

Harbor Freight also sold/sells a set of high speed steel woodturning
tools. 8 or so tools. $40-50. The 1" and 1/2" skew chisels are just
as good as any otheres you can buy. 3/8" and 1/2" gouges are just as
good as any others. Scrapers scrape just fine. Couple of the big
gouges are good. The set is good. And if you use it to learn how to
sharpen with a dry grinder, you don't feel bad grinding away expensive
high speed steel. My Uncle refers to Harbor Freight as the Chinese
store. Ain't that the truth.

On Jan 28, 12:15*pm, "Lee Michaels"
wrote:


Nice story Robert.

I surmised that you purchased this mystery tool from Harbor Freight.

Any chance you could share with us the identity and cost of said mystery
tool? *;-)

Sorry, Lee. It was the aforementioned Fein osculating knockoff for
$35. Best $35 I spent in a while, and the really hard work didn't
seem to hurt it a bit.

Robert

"RonB" wrote in message
...


HF isn't my source of choice but they do have a few pretty good
deals. At a finish carpenters suggestion I bought one of their cheapo
18 gauge finishing nailers several years ago. It is getting beat up
from use but is hanging in there with my old Porter Cable (Porter
Cable - $160/HF - $29.95 weekend sale). I figured it would take some
of the use stress off of the PC and it has.

I find myself buying more and more different things from HF as time goes by.
There are still some things I'm leary of there, but of the things I've
bought, almost every one has been good enough to be call acceptable. I have
the brad nailer too - paid $13 or $19, or something like that - under $20.
My son bought one also and he uses his constantly. Attached to his $92 HF
compressor - a small little horizontal tank compressor. That little thing
just works.


My best buy was one of their weekend sale mortise machines. I almost
felt guilty buying it for $99 because I figured it would fall apart in
the back of my pickup before I got home. But guess what? It cuts
square holes, lines them up fairly well, has enough power, and the
chisels provided with it were pretty good. Delta chisels are
interchangeable. The table and hold down mechanism are crap that can
be improved but I haven't done it yet. In ten years and a fair amount
of use I have replaced the switch.

Years ago, I bought a Delta mortise attachment for my drill press. I would
make all of the same statements about it that you made about your HF
mortiser. The hold downs are pure junk. Don't know why they would even
bother including them in the package.



--

-Mike-

"Lee Michaels" wrote in message
...

"Swingman" wrote

Cheap clamps, which can be put in harm's way without any worry, and
double sided tape, are both a couple of other bargains at HF.
--
Yep, I had the job recently of having to derust a bunch of metal that had
been stored improperly. Before ,when I did this job like this, I had a
helper hold the material while I ran the angle grinder with a wire brush.
This time I had to do it alone. I bought some HF clamps. built a couple
clamping jigs out of scrap and started my job.

I ended up destroying a couple clamps. But the others are fine and the job
was actually accomplished in less time than if I had some human help.


Oh man Lee - next time you have to do this, go get one of their needle
scalers. I bought one when I tore my truck apart last year to put a new
body on it. Used the needle scaler to clean the frame. What a magic tool
that is! A word of warning - you'll want good hearing protection when
you're using it though. And... you'll feel that tingle of youth throughout
your whole body after an hour of using it. But... you should see the rust
just fall of as you run it down the frame. Gets something like that clean
enough to just blow Rustoleum straight on. Of course, you'll need their
Binks Model 7 knock off (or for real men - a real Binks model 7), to blow
the stuff on straight out of the can.

--

-Mike-

Swingman wrote:
On 1/28/2010 9:31 AM, RonB wrote:

Other than that, they are a good source for latex gloves, air hose,
some air tools, etc. IOW, I am not a total HF snob.

Cheap clamps, which can be put in harm's way without any worry, and
double sided tape, are both a couple of other bargains at HF.

I recently bought two bar clamps that were on sale at HF for like $3 a
piece. I used them once and they seemed OK. I actually liked them for
light duty stuff.

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=46807

I used them a second time today, and I felt a snap when squeezing the
clamp handle. The handle comes apart easily and I saw they had really
cheap plastic molded tits holding the squeeze handle. I simply drilled
a hole through the housing and put in a small nut and bolt. The thing
now works great and will not likely ever break.
--
Jack
Gun control is not about guns; it's about control.
http://jbstein.com

RonB

I assume then that Tulsa is also too far. *I know there are people from
Coffeyville who occasionally drive down to Tulsa for shopping.

Bill


Yes. Coffeyville is right on the Oklahoma state line, and about 40-45
miles south of us. In fact South Coffeyville is in Oklahoma. But
Tulsa is about a 125 miles from us. We grew up in Saint Paul Kansas,
and moved back after 45 years in the Wichita area. Seldom return to
Wichita and, for practical purposes, Joplin has about every thing
Wichita had; but more of a laid-back, friendly atmosphere.

RonB