Harbor Freight calipers.

Tin Falcon said:

I have not tried the HF metal tool boxes.

I do have one of the wood machinist chests . IMHO good bang for the buck . I got a 40% off deal so paid $ 60. I paid twice that for my sons grizzly box although it is bigger with more drawers. Not a Gershner but not a Gershner price either.
Am fortunate to have found a deal on a Kennedy box used and some new craftsman work benches with lots of drawers.

HF does have some decent stuff but probably not best to buy blind. touch feel look inspect before you buy. and read reviews if you can learn from others experience.
Tin

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i had a look around harbor freight recently. what i have to say. good value but be very selective, most of the store is filled with stuff not worth buying even to throw away when you are done. for preceision tools, inspect before you buy. i got the 8" calipers. and am considering the 3piece micrometer set. there are better deals on mics on ebay but no way to inslect for parallelism before i buy so i may just go with harbor freight.

i was looking at that wood toolchest and the carpenters bench. both look like a good value. i also picked up a chainfall that i used to lift my knee mill. right now sears has a great deal on a wookbench with a butcher block top. i can't buy a top for what they list anywhere else. but the smaller harbor freight butcher block table may be all i need.

If I can afford it, I try to buy "good" measuring tools. All of my micrometers are Starrett, bought used on EBay and all checked out perfectly.. Most of them came in those great wooden boxes except for an inside mike that was in a fitted, fabric lined case.
My first new purchase was a Mitutoyo digital caliper. $100 (yes that's 5x the HF price)
I use it every time I'm in the shop and it has remained deadon accurate. The battery life is exceptional. Replaced the original battery after a bit over a year of use.
Having said that, if I couldn't afford the $100, a HF caliper would work. It's better than nothing.

Sshire said:

If I can afford it, I try to buy "good" measuring tools. All of my micrometers are Starrett, bought used on EBay and all checked out perfectly.. Most of them came in those great wooden boxes except for an inside mike that was in a fitted, fabric lined case.
My first new purchase was a Mitutoyo digital caliper. $100 (yes that's 5x the HF price)
I use it every time I'm in the shop and it has remained deadon accurate. The battery life is exceptional. Replaced the original battery after a bit over a year of use.
Having said that, if I couldn't afford the $100, a HF caliper would work. It's better than nothing.

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i have been buying some decent inspection equipment used such as indicators and height gages and a "cadilac" gage and soon a large surface plate and gage blocks... i will eventually get mitutoyo mics 0-6 inches with carbide tipped spindles and anvils and a 12" digital caliper with carbide jaws but i also want "shop grade" stuff to use at the machine in the dirty chip ridden environment. for that anything that will cal is good enough. i'll keep the valuable stuff in the clean side of the shop.

I have had the same experience as Tin with regards to HF calipers. We hire a lot of inexperienced interns who don't yet understand how to take care of equipment. Years ago we started buying a dozen or so sets of HF dial calipers before each summer. The full time staff all have a set of Mitys, but the interns would use and abuse the cheep stuff. 10 years ago, the dial calipers would hold up for a year or so, and generally tracked well with the "Good" calipers.

The last 3 years we have tried all sorts of sub $40 calipers, from HF as well as Enco and MSC. Nothing has lasted more than 6 weeks! Every pair of low end dial calipers I have seen in the last few years has trouble keeping the pinion engaged with the rack so that the readings don't repeat. The cheaper digital calipers seem to have absolute accuracy issues at the lower end of the measurement range.

With regards to HF and value: I admit to being a tool junkie, and buying more quality or function in a tool than I can justify. However, there have been times when HF stuff has been of great value. I find the blanket statements about cheep "Import" tools all being junk just about as short sighted as the opinions out there about Snap-On or MAC all being overpriced status symbols. You do get what you pay for to a point, but my co-workers BMW does not deliver $30k more in value than my Dodge. Maybe $10k more, but not $30k.

Thanks for the perspective Stan. I agree if you can afford it buy the good stuff and calipers are probably the most used measuring tool in the shop.


It is interesting we sit here and debate Harbor freight tools vs (Pick your favorite quality brand)

but in reality there is no comparison except 5x the quality usually demands 5x the price. And a quality tool will never let you down.

It is also interesting to note that Harbor freight is not the only importer of cheap Asian import tools. tractor supply , Home depot , Lowes, sears ........the list goes on have sold no name or own name low quality stuff for years. Some works some does not. life goes on.
Brian: you bring up a good point about value. price cost and value can be very different.
Price is easy what do you have to pay for the item. Oh on sale 40% off so price can vary. day to day on the same item.

Cost this is based on price plus things like having to use batteries in the case of a digital calipers or added tooling on a lathe. Or did the $2.00 HFT snap ring plies sap apart and slice the palm of your hand and cause a two hour vistit to the emergency room . Now you have a case of low price but very high cost. and very low value.

Value is the big one. a good measure is price and resale value . but it is more . machine tool value is how much and well it produces. A machine that makes 10 widgets a day vs 100 a day or a thousand. very different value .

But what about hand tools many things affect value. brand name means something. How good does it look. How good does it feel in the hand. how does it work. is it easy to use or difficult to adjust. How often do you use it. is it single purpose or mufti use........

The other aspect of this is does a person have one good tool kit or several places where tools are kept and used.


Tin

the digi caliper quality has gone down, the 8" is now all rough and nasty the ealier one was smooth their digi mic is awesome for the price it's within a .0001 of my Mitu. 1 inch digi mic. I've found that for all practical purposes a 30dollar HF caliper works about as well as a 150 dollar Mitu. after it bounces off the floor. and I don't feel as ticked off. the way I see it the cheapest hammer still beats using a rock.

I have a drawer full of good calipers, but everytime I go to HF, I buy another digital!

tarawa said:

I have a drawer full of good calipers, but everytime I go to HF, I buy another digital!

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I do the same thing with thier 4.5" grinders. :wall:

I got a 4" and an 8" digital caliper from HF a few months ago, both Pittsburgh brand. I was less than impressed with the fit and feel of the instruments. They looked and felt like they had been chewed on by angry beavers. Their action was also very rough.

For the price I paid I figured that I wouldn't be out that much if they didn't work after I took them apart and cleaned them. I stoned off all the sharp edges that didn't belong, cleaned out the grinding grit - wondering all the time why it was there at all, lubed the moving parts appropriately and reassembled the calipers. Since I did that I have been very happy with these calipers, much happier than I am the unit that I got at Lowes that cost me three times as much. That sucker will change the zero in the middle of a reading, so it gets used only as a last resort.

I think I'm going to treat everything I get at HF as a kit, a place to start but not quite a finished product.

Don

Hey Don,

Curious about the ones you got at Lowes. Were they the ones with the plastic jaws, or the metal ones labeled as Kobalt? I have two of the Kobalt ones that I've been pretty happy with.

Todd

Don -

That's a good way to look at HF. I generally find that anything I get at HF typically can use some improvement with fit and finish. Since I live near an HF, I can look at the stuff before I buy it, and I always ask myself what I will need to do to either make my purchase workable, or to improve it. I don't mind doing the "post-factory" work if the price it right, and I often enjoy making improvements.

With any of the higher priced HF equipment, it's worth googling first to see what others have done. Also HF has reviews on it's website, and they seem to be honest in that they include both the good and the bad. I even think HF listens to the reviews, as I have seen model changes made that seem to reflect comments made in reviews.

ddmckee54 said:

I got a 4" and an 8" digital caliper from HF a few months ago, both Pittsburgh brand. I was less than impressed with the fit and feel of the instruments. They looked and felt like they had been chewed on by angry beavers. Their action was also very rough.

For the price I paid I figured that I wouldn't be out that much if they didn't work after I took them apart and cleaned them. I stoned off all the sharp edges that didn't belong, cleaned out the grinding grit - wondering all the time why it was there at all, lubed the moving parts appropriately and reassembled the calipers. Since I did that I have been very happy with these calipers, much happier than I am the unit that I got at Lowes that cost me three times as much. That sucker will change the zero in the middle of a reading, so it gets used only as a last resort.

I think I'm going to treat everything I get at HF as a kit, a place to start but not quite a finished product.

Don

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SilverSanJuan:

They were the plastic jawed General brand. It was an impulse buy, figured they had to be better than HF right?

I'll be able to resist that impulse in the future.

Don

I'm reading this post and
IRof}Rof}Rof} we probably all have glasses to see properly

we all get digital calipers to make to make our life easy

we are paying 10.00 @ and still ***** about it. One thing I know

I'm not planning to go back to full mechanical caliper

I do take twice the measurement............. after all it's a hobby

ddmckee54 said:

SilverSanJuan:

They were the plastic jawed General brand. It was an impulse buy, figured they had to be better than HF right?

I'll be able to resist that impulse in the future.

Don

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LOL. Yeah, I'll bet you will.

What I thought was strange was the the plastic General 6" was more expensive than the metal Kobalt caliper.

Todd

tarawa said:

I have a drawer full of good calipers, but everytime I go to HF, I buy another digital!

Click to expand...

Interesting, must be nice to have a drawer full of calipers, but wouldn't that money be better put to other new tools? On the other hand if you are like me you will often set a tool down in the middle of a project and not find it again until clean up. Maybe a couple of calipers makes sense.

canadianhorsepower said:

I'm reading this post and
IRof}Rof}Rof} we probably all have glasses to see properly

we all get digital calipers to make to make our life easy

Click to expand...

This is the big one. I picked up a box of goodies at the Cabin Fever expo and found an old set of vernier calipers in the bottom of the box. I looked at them and the engraved lines wondering what in the hell will I use these for. I suppose a magnifying glass will soon be in my set of required tools.

we are paying 10.00 @ and still ***** about it. One thing I know

I'm not planning to go back to full mechanical caliper

I do take twice the measurement............. after all it's a hobby

Click to expand...

Digital devices do make life easier, the bigger of fatter the digits the better.

OK today in a moment of weakness bought another set of the Pittsburgh Brand model 47256 4" digital calipers. . I keeps a set in my tool bag for work and decided I NEEDED another set and they were on sale.
so a bit humor to follow : Due to continuing improvement actual product may differ slightly from the product described herein. Did someone say improvement? can I believe it ?

This product is not a toy keep away from children. Is that because of all the sharp edges ?

Use as intended only. This caliper was designed for specific tasks. Do not modify this tool and do not use for purposes for which it was not intended.

Ok fine but nowhere on this document is any real instruction of how to use this tool. so is it must assumed the operator knows how?

This item comes with two batteries one installed and a spare . but they are the wrong kind for electronics. cheapo LR44s provided.

Inspect before use. Yep and one can feel that the tool was made with a dull milling cutter. So dissemble and finish the thing like they should have at the factory and smooth off the rough edges.

And life goes on.
Tin