The Hater's Guide to Harbor Freight (What to Avoid)
This is the hater’s guide to Harbor Freight. I know some of you may drive by a Harbor Freight, and you won’t even turn your head or look that way. You may even shudder a little bit at the thought of seeing a Harbor Freight in your town. However, there are some hidden gems hidden deep inside that store that I’m going to tell you about. Then, I’m going to tell you about which tools to avoid at all costs.
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So how do I know that a lot of people hate Harbor Freight? All you have to do is go to the Better Business Bureau and you’ll see that it has an ‘F’ rating with 473 complaints in the last 3 years. It also has a 2 out of 5 stars on Sitejabber, with 162 reviews. On Trustpilot, it has a 1.6 out of 5 rating based on 223 reviews. Most of those negative reviews are based on 2 reasons - customer service and defective tools. So, I understand why there is negativity and hatred towards Harbor Freight.
I do want to address the elephant in the room - the price. Most of the stuff you’re going to find in Harbor Freight is way less expensive than anything you’re going to find in most other stores. There’s a reason for that. A lot of Harbor Freight tools are built with cheaper quality plastics and metal. We’ll get into that in a little bit.
There are some basic rules to adhere to when you’re looking at stuff there in order to improve your experience. One, the more moving parts an item has, the more you should reconsider giving your money for that piece of equipment. However, I do have some tools from there that I recommend.
First and foremost is the hidden gem in the Bremen parallel clamp. I did a very extensive comparison review a while back on my YouTube channel. The link to that video is below. I had Jet, Bessey, Bora, Jorgensen, Irwin, Bremen, and so on--a bunch of brands in that test. The Bremen clamp performed very well. It wasn’t my top pick, but for a budget pick at $24 per clamp for a 24” clamp these are a steal. They work extremely well.
I also recommend the Pittsburg 60” bar clamp. While they’re not super strong, they definitely have their purpose. I used these when I was trying to clamp up my work bench and I need a very long clamping capacity to pull the ends together. I was able to hook two of these Pittsburg clamps together, and it worked. I’ve also used them when I was building my flags because they’ve got that flat bar. While you can’t generate a ton of clamping pressure when you’re using these, they work extremely well for that light-duty purpose. I recommend these because they’re only about $20. You can even beef up these clamps by cutting a piece of wood to slide inside the channel on the bottom side of the bar. I’ve had these for about five years and never had any issues with them.
I promise I’ve got tools other than just clamps, but the Pittsburg 8” hand-screw clamps have a ton of uses in the woodshop. I’ve shown that in a previous video. You can use them to hold small parts at the drill press. You can create a vertical vise at your workbench. You can use them as stop blocks on the router table, and a ton of other uses. They’re a great value at only $8.00, and they’re similar in quality to the TayTools brand (which I actually prefer). If you’re ever in Harbor Freight, these are an excellent value.
Last but certainly not least on the clamp list are F-style clamps, with a caveat: don’t buy any that are over 6”. But at $3.50 most days, these little f-style clamps are an excellent value. Typically, when you’re using a clamp of this size, you’re not really putting a lot of pressure on them.
What I’ve noticed on the longer clamps, especially like the 36” clamp, once you start wrenching down on them to apply pressure, they start bending. The metal used in the bar is soft and thin. I’ve got an Irwin clamp that I’ve had about as long as the Harbor Freight clamp, and it has held up extremely well. The Harbor Freight clamp is still bent. I’ve even got a 12” clamp that significantly bent after just a couple of uses. Be careful with those. I’ve found the Irwin F-clamps to be better quality and still at a good price.
One of my favorite things to get from Harbor Freight are the organizational items, especially the magnetic stuff like magnetic trays. They come in a variety of colors and are super cheap. They’re great for putting loose bolts or screws in while you’re working on something. What I really love them for is storing my bits in them. I can then store the trays on my metal tool wall.
They’ve got other magnetic accessories as well, like hooks that you can stick to the bandsaw or table saw to hang things--like wrenches or push sticks. They also sell a drill and driver holder that can hook onto the side of your tool chest or workbench. They also have magnetic bars that you can screw into the wall and hang your wrenches or chisels on them. Last but not least is the paper towel holder. That thing is awesome. It just magnetically sticks to metal, and I’m always needing paper towels in the shop.
All these things have zero moving parts, which is why I like them. It’s very hard to mess something like that up. Something else I would recommend for light-duty use are their wrenches. If you’re just using them around the house here and there, they’ll be perfectly fine.
Also, if you need a paint brush for just putting on stains or working on shop furniture, the paint brushes from Harbor Freight are perfectly fine. Now, if I’m painting something that I need a finer finish on, then I will go to someplace like Sherwin-Williams and get Wooster brand, or one of the top-tier brands. That’s because the bristles from Woosters don’t fall out as easily as they do from Harbor Freight. The last thing I want is a finished project with a bristle stuck in it.
As far as power tools go from Harbor Freight, again, the more moving parts the more I would actually dig into the reviews and be more considerate of that. However, the Hercules line, especially the Hercules miter saw, seems to be a very good value. I know someone personally who has had one for a very long time and really likes the saw. If you compare it to the DeWALT DWS780, they look almost identical. I would be really surprised if the Hercules isn’t a direct rip-off, or they’re coming out of the same factory. You tell me.
Also worth mentioning is the Bauer line, especially the planer that they have for $379. It’s almost an exact replica of the Craftsman planer that I reviewed previously. I wouldn’t have any hesitation recommending that for light-duty use, such as once a month on a weekend project, something like that. If you’re just planing down a few boards, it’ll work just fine.
Now for some of the tools I would absolutely avoid at all costs (or at least at most costs): I would avoid measuring devices, especially squares and rules. I know there are some who may give me a little pushback on this, but I pulled two rules at random off their shelf and laid them side by side, one on top of the other one. Over the length of 36”, they are almost 1/16” off from each other. That’s just randomly grabbing two off the shelf. That tells me all I need to know about their rulers.
If you want a really quality rule at a lower price, Benchmark makes some really quality rules from Taytools. They’re really accurate and all of them are the same.
The tape measures are probably okay if you’re just going to use one tape measure in your shop. If you’re planning on using multiple tape measures, I would highly recommend FastCap. As far as squares go, maybe they’re okay, but I just don’t trust them. I know that Swanson brand makes a very good quality square at a very low price, and I’ve used them since 1995, so I have zero issues with them. I know they’re good quality, and they’re always going to be accurate. That’s why it’s hard for me to recommend a Harbor Freight brand that may or may not be accurate when I know for a fact that Swanson’s going to be accurate.
Personally, I would avoid Drill Master or Chicago Electric brand power tools. If you’re going to be buying power tools from Harbor Freight, I would steer more towards the Bauer and Hercules lines. The Chicago Electric’s okay. They just look cheap, and you can tell they’re made out of cheap plastics.
If you compare the Drill Master or Chicago Electric routers to something like a Bosch router, you’re better off to just save up another $100 and get the Bosch. A lot of times the Bosch goes on sale for 20% off on Amazon, and in my opinion, you’re getting a better-quality router that’s going to last you many years longer and be more accurate. You just want to go with a known, quality brand on stuff like that.
One thing that I would definitely avoid at all costs from Harbor Freight are their chisels and hand planes. The reason they’re selling them at such a cheap price is because the metals are inferior to brands like Narex. On a Narex line, those chisels are going to stay sharper longer. Now, you’re paying pennies on the dollar at Harbor Freight, but they’re not going to hold an edge. If you’re using a chisel for any fine woodworking, then you’re going to want a sharp edge that’s going to give you a clean cut. At the point where you’re using a chisel, the last thing you want to do is mess that project up.
Another thing I was absolutely unimpressed with was the Hercules jobsite table saw. Just checking it out in the store and seeing the way the fence worked, it was kind of sloppy when you moved it and then locked it down. I don’t trust that it’s going to remain square at all times. For a jobsite saw, I would steer more in the direction of a brand with a rack-and-pinion fence like the DeWALT.
The router bits also look super cheap. I would assume they’re using lower quality metals here, too. I would recommend looking at Whiteside or some other brand that you can get online or in your local stores. Those others will stay sharper longer, and they’ll produce a cleaner cut with less burning. When you’re using those roundover bits or those chamfer bits, that’s getting close to the end of the project. The last thing you want to do is have a bunch of tearout because of a bad bit.
Current Harbor Freight Deals - https://sovrn.co/pnvc06d
You can watch the full video review here - https://youtu.be/_WzDCxfJXAY
Greatest Free Gift I've Ever Received: http://story4.us/731Woodworks
