Harbor Freight vs. Grizzly

[CompositeEngr]

RE: hand tool quality
I have a mixed bag of different wrenches, and very few have actually failed. Only wrench I can remember breaking was while standing on a 6' persuader on a rusted bolt.
I did get a batch of metric wrenches where every single one is off a 1/2 mm or more. 1/2 mm is workable until the torque gets pretty high, then they are worthless knuckle-busting nut-rounders. They cost about 1/6 as much as the Craftsman set with fewer wrenches, and about 1/2 the Pro-Mark wal-mart set, both of which actually fit. I'd also go so far as to say that I prefer the wal-mart set over the craftsman because the handles feel nicer (and shinier)

[Paul Alciatore]

I've been to both Grizzly and HF stores and I'm definitely not impressed with HF. Their lathes and mills all seem to have problems like metric feedscrews with English scales or vice-versa and just general poor quality. Their people do not seem to know how to assemble the display machines.

On the other hand, Grizzly's stuff all looks solid. I bought their 3 in 1 Sheet Metal machine, 4X6 Band Saw, G1007 Mill-Drill, and a 10" Rotary Table. All four items have proven very serviceable for the type of work I do. The only funny thing among the three is the metric downfeed on the G1007 which is marked in thousanths (25mm =? 1"). This produces an error of 16 thousanths per inch of travel. This is a well known pecularity and I believe it exists on all the popular Chinese imports. I guess it would be more expensive to produce a new downfeed mechanism than changing to English leadscrews. A simple translation table solved this problem.

I would recommend Grizzly to anyone who does not need top-of-the-line quality. You stand a very good chance of getting a satisfactory tool from them without actually seeing it. On the other hand, I would strongly recommend that any HF tools be visually inspected before buying.

[Jaymo]

Crowfoot wrenches are not intended for torquing. In fact, open end wrenches, period, are not for torquing. Torque adapters are made specifically for that purpose. They look like, for lack of a better descriptive, box end crowfoot wrenches. They're calibrated for torque wrench use. Then again, the military has a horrible habit of using the wrong tool for the job. Heard the same accounts of the military letting complete idiots turn wrenches, and the stupid things they do, from a LOT of ex military mechanics, friends family, co-workers, and tech school instructors. Of course, there are those times when you have to do something the wrong way with the wrong tool because the a$$hole engineers never consider the fact that it will need maintenance and repairs in the future, when they design it.

[docsteve66]

Jaymo: If you ever look at the way the jugs on some radial enginges are "affixed" you would see that ONLY a crow foot can get into the place. The nuts will not slide on to the bolts unless the jug is lifted a little. So a crows foot is called for, a crows foot is used. They have so little movement that the wrench is flipped to get enough movement to turn the nut a single flat.

So far as the engineering goes, the engines came home (so I am told) with missing cylinders where a shell and holed them, things flopping around in the wind, and if the oil held out the engines made it home (with crew dead or alive). If it did as well as the reputation says, the engineer did well and its not too much to ask that a crows foot wrench be applied.
Maybe the problems should have been caught in design.

If corrected today, Probably would have made a scandel sheet where some one spent 100,00o dollars to redesign a 50 year old engine to avoid using a crows foot wrench.

If you note in full what happened, the problem was solved at little cost (just some time) by selecting wrenches that would do that particular job and getting them to the men doing that job. A new MIL Spec would have cost thousands of dollars, taken at least a year or more, added a new class of wrenches, cost the taxpayer lots of money.

THe big problem with the military and the "complete idiots" isthat they take young men and try to make mechanics of them. Those "idiots" have since time long past have won wars. If you have not walked the path and lived the life, you have little knowledge of the problems- and its easy to propose solutions. In my world, men bear scars and lost lives keeping stuff going becaasue thats what they had to work with.

[wierdscience]

The difference between American,English and German fighter engines in WW II I have been told is that the German engine went back to the factory for an overhaul,the English required techs.And the American was overhauled in the field,in the rain, in the mud and in the dirt by a G.I.with a rag and a wrench! One small reason Our Fathers and Grandfathers won the day!!

[R S Nelson]

While this subject has been pretty thoroughly covered, I have purchased materials from Harbor Freight, Grizzly, Enco and MSC. Most recently I agonized between buying a surface grinder from HF or Grizzly. I new from having visited the Grizzly showroom that their machinery had a really nice finish and good customer service, but the HF grinder was about one third less money, especially if I made my own base. I finally bought the HF grinder, but the manual was atrocious, so I order Grizzly's manual. It turned out to be identical! Obviously both grinders came from the same plant. My grinder has worked beautifully and does perfect work.
Much of the material I have gotten from Harbor Freight is rough but serviceable. Only a couple of items just didn't work. Grizzly seems to supply better finished equipment.

[wmgeorge]

So how does the HF surface grinder work as far as finish and ease of use? I'm looking at purchasing a used surface grinder off eBay, but I need to drive about 6 hours one way to pick up...

[George Hodge]

Stopped at both Grizzly and Harbor Frieght last week. HF was busy! Noticed one of the employees assembling a stand.Also saw he was using a Dewalt cordless drill.Asked him why he wasn't using one of the imports and he said it wouldn't tighten up on the drill bit worth crap. Also,all the American tools were locked up inside cases. 99% of the tools and stuff is from China,almost like Wallyworld. I did buy a small butane torch,$9.95,on sale. No butane sold there. Had to dissassemble the torch to load it with fuel,It works good so far,but it looks short lived.

[This message has been edited by George Hodge (edited 02-12-2003).]

[JCHannum]

wmgeorge, you may want to look at Fred Farkle's comments on Harbor Freight surface grinder under Homemade Surface Grinder topic a couple of days ago. Six hour drive might not be too bad after all.

[GM69camaro]

I have a Harbor Freight 7 x 10 minilathe that was OK at best when I got it. There was a lot of slop in the carriage and all the gibs were loose. Since then I have lapped the ways and all the gibs and now it is a very nice machine. I can make a .002" cut where before I was lucky to get a .005" cut without something moving (slop). I made several other improvement mods to the machine and now I like it so much I could never part with it.
My guess is that all the Chinese minilathes are about the same.

Gordon

[Jaymo]

Docsteve, don't get your undies in such a bunch. Apparently, you didn't read my post very well before replying. Most of my friends are ex military mechanics. Many of my family members are. I didn't say that all of them were idiots. But the truth is that the military tries to make mechanics out of a lot of guys who have no business turning wrenches for pay. Of all the military mechanics I've known, all the best ones were those who already had some prior mechanical experience, or at least interest, before enlisting.
Yes, I have worked on radial engines, and I know that about which you speak. Hell, my uncle was a career mechanic in the USAF. He retired a few years ago. He witnessed a lot of stupid s#*t being done. Besides, some of the stupidest "mechanics" I've ever worked with were ex military. As have some of the best. The difference is that the really good ones were all from the Viet Nam generation and before. The military has dropped the standards drastically in the past 30 years. The price of being PC and tolerant. The military is now much more of an equal opportunity employer than it used to be. You can't expect much when you're required to required to take in those who aren't even suited to selling fast food.
The fact remains that crowfoot wrenches are designed with the intent that they never be used for torquing. Any open end wrench will spread jaws and slip when any appreciable amount of torque is applied. being open ended as they are leaves them substansially weaker than their boxed end counterparts. Once again, the engineers design components without considering the poor bastards who have to keep them running. The shame of it is that the military has thrown away tons of perfectly good Snap Off tools. At one base, which was being closed, my uncle witnessed Snap Off roll arounds and top chests full of Snap Off tools being unceremoniously dumped into trenches dug with a backhoe, as opposed to actually havint to moce them to another base and store them until they are needed, or selling them as surplus. But that's one of the problems with the way government budgets work. I know how those jugs are. They're a PITA. However, I do recall us using special wrenches designed just for that job. They had 2 90% angles bent into them. One end was the handle, the other had the head, which was a thinwalled box. Even those were a PITA. A whole lot of being a mechanic whether it's aircraft, autos, forklifts, tractors, trailers, heavy equipment, pallet jacks(yes, I've worked on all of them in my career-kept trying different things until I found something I really enjoyed) is trying to make the best out of a clusterf**k, and do it correctly and in a timely manner. When you're a high school hotrodder with an itch to be a mechanic, you think it's always as much fun as working on your own ride. Then you go to work fixing other people's pieces of sh*t. There goes the novelty of being a mechanic. But if you really have the love for it, you keep plugging and find a field where you don't dread going to work everyday, and most days, look forward to it. I can't really think of anything I'd rather do. Except maybe gunsmithing, or running my own foundry.
Also, I wasn't referring to the durability of the engines, or their ability to take abuse. I was referring to the fact that engineers design things without even considering the possibility that they may need maintenance/repairs sometime in the future. They seem to think that once it's assembled and installed, it'll never need to be removed or disassembled. So before you break my balls over my statement that the military has a bunch of idiots turning the wrenches, you should work with some of these idiots. And remember, I never stated, nor implied, that all military mechanics were idiots. Just that there are a bunch of them. Just like the fact that some of the dumbest auto mechanics are ASE certified. Not that all ASE certified mechanics are dumb, far from it. Just that a lot of them are.
Anyway, I'm just calling a spade a spade. I'm certainly not trying to offend any of the fine people here, least of all those who've turned wrenches for Uncle Sam.
Hey, I just noticed that this reply rambles and meanders to the point of almost making no sense at all. Hell, that qualifies me for a job as a top paid journalist with any of the mainstream media. Hot damn, I'm changing careers.

[dbasberg]

A good person will do the best work they can and will learn to do better all the time. BUT, everywhere, there are those that do not have a work ethic or the inclination to learn. My friend retired from the Air Force five years ago. He was the top enlisted man in charge of all flight mechanics at an Air Base. He said he was retiring just in time. The grade of replacement mechanics he was getting often could not read better than the third grade. The military training manuals are starting to use cartoons and pictures to replace words to reach more people of this disadvantage background. I know that I am really doing thorough preflights before I go up. He sorted his staff to guarantee the best service he could. Some sorted bolts. He was running out of people that could do a major engine repair. I guess every generation since the cave men have though the 'youngsters' were going to hell in a handbasket...why should I buck the tradition

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Jaymo:
Docsteve, don't get your undies in such a bunch. Apparently, you didn't read my post very well before replying. Most of my friends are ex military mechanics. Many of my family members are. I didn't say that all of them were idiots. But the truth is that the military tries to make mechanics out of a lot of guys who have no business turning wrenches for pay. Of all the military mechanics I've known, all the best ones were those who already had some prior mechanical experience, or at least interest, before enlisting.
Yes, I have worked on radial engines, and I know that about which you speak. Hell, my uncle was a career mechanic in the USAF. He retired a few years ago. He witnessed a lot of stupid s#*t being done. Besides, some of the stupidest "mechanics" I've ever worked with were ex military. As have some of the best. The difference is that the really good ones were all from the Viet Nam generation and before. The military has dropped the standards drastically in the past 30 years. The price of being PC and tolerant. The military is now much more of an equal opportunity employer than it used to be. You can't expect much when you're required to required to take in those who aren't even suited to selling fast food.
The fact remains that crowfoot wrenches are designed with the intent that they never be used for torquing. Any open end wrench will spread jaws and slip when any appreciable amount of torque is applied. being open ended as they are leaves them substansially weaker than their boxed end counterparts. Once again, the engineers design components without considering the poor bastards who have to keep them running. The shame of it is that the military has thrown away tons of perfectly good Snap Off tools. At one base, which was being closed, my uncle witnessed Snap Off roll arounds and top chests full of Snap Off tools being unceremoniously dumped into trenches dug with a backhoe, as opposed to actually havint to moce them to another base and store them until they are needed, or selling them as surplus. But that's one of the problems with the way government budgets work. I know how those jugs are. They're a PITA. However, I do recall us using special wrenches designed just for that job. They had 2 90% angles bent into them. One end was the handle, the other had the head, which was a thinwalled box. Even those were a PITA. A whole lot of being a mechanic whether it's aircraft, autos, forklifts, tractors, trailers, heavy equipment, pallet jacks(yes, I've worked on all of them in my career-kept trying different things until I found something I really enjoyed) is trying to make the best out of a clusterf**k, and do it correctly and in a timely manner. When you're a high school hotrodder with an itch to be a mechanic, you think it's always as much fun as working on your own ride. Then you go to work fixing other people's pieces of sh*t. There goes the novelty of being a mechanic. But if you really have the love for it, you keep plugging and find a field where you don't dread going to work everyday, and most days, look forward to it. I can't really think of anything I'd rather do. Except maybe gunsmithing, or running my own foundry.
Also, I wasn't referring to the durability of the engines, or their ability to take abuse. I was referring to the fact that engineers design things without even considering the possibility that they may need maintenance/repairs sometime in the future. They seem to think that once it's assembled and installed, it'll never need to be removed or disassembled. So before you break my balls over my statement that the military has a bunch of idiots turning the wrenches, you should work with some of these idiots. And remember, I never stated, nor implied, that all military mechanics were idiots. Just that there are a bunch of them. Just like the fact that some of the dumbest auto mechanics are ASE certified. Not that all ASE certified mechanics are dumb, far from it. Just that a lot of them are.
Anyway, I'm just calling a spade a spade. I'm certainly not trying to offend any of the fine people here, least of all those who've turned wrenches for Uncle Sam.
Hey, I just noticed that this reply rambles and meanders to the point of almost making no sense at all. Hell, that qualifies me for a job as a top paid journalist with any of the mainstream media. Hot damn, I'm changing careers. </font>

[lynnl]

C'mon, whadya expect of an "all volunteer" force ...in a society where success is defined in monetary terms. In general, the best/brightest are going to migrate to the plush, lucrative careers that don't involve thankless hours on a -40 degree flightline in Minot ND, or deployments into hostilities that may be more motivated by govermental political ambitions than by true national interest... nor service to a government that, with the stroke of its bureaucratic pen decides that there's no need to keep its promises made to its veterans who placed their lives on the line and went in harms way.

I retired (AF) in 1987, and don't know firsthand how much the quality of personnel has changed, but frankly doubt that it has been very much. Considering the size of the military, obviously some 'square pegs' will be assigned to 'round holes', but in general I think a damn fine job is being done, and given its situation, the USAF is the best training organization (for its size and needs) in the world.

[docsteve66]

Jaymo: any reference to idiots etc in my post were quotes from your post. get on one side or the other and defend your position. You have same problem as general Custer- you see indians every where!

The use of the crow foot was done by a man olderthan I was at the time. The incedent probaly took place in mid 1970's. The engine under discussion was made for WW11, in use during Korea and VietNam.

So far as military fitness goes, I only spent 6 years in Corps, a few months of that in combat (that means being shot at , not in therear with the gear and beer), and 12 years in combat zones, also beingshot at every so often, I did advanced surveys for "Game Warden, Market time, Chu Lai) before the US miltiary could get into those places. I worked with Maag groups under fire, in communications centers where holes were being punched, as I watched, in equipment. Along side me, in most cases, were kids- mostly just recent high school grad's. Some used dope, but like the sateside folks claimed, they were given jobs to do and no tools to do them with. Taught how to do the jobs with the state ofthe art equipment, drafted (kicking and screaming) to go where most nevera wanted to go. They wedged screw drivers be side wrenches to make the wrnech fit, rope to improvise strap wrenches, jeeps loaded to give traction to pull loads suited for 6X6's. The problem in the USA then now and next week, is leadship and BULL artists. People who "know" how things shouldbe done- and have not had to solvethe problems wiuth the tools at hand. THey usualy did it in less time than they would have used had the proper tools been on hand.

Please note that I tell what I saw and did. No My uncle or the guy on the toilet next to the guy who heard crap!!!.

Now go back and read what I said- not what you say I said
Steve