HF grinder stand junk

Well you really hurt my feelings there with such a mean thing to say about my favorite place to shop. But I’ll try to get over it without too many tears.
I think they’ve got a bucket sale going this weekend. I sure wish I needed something that would fit in a bucket. Lol
 
woodchucker said:
since you said the top hole is too large. You may want to pot it in JB Weld as well to take up the space and give you a nice tight fit. Just a thought.
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By boring out the lower inch of the bore I now have a nice snug fit. The top 3/4" is still open but the tube cannot tilt anymore. I only had to lightly snug each bolt and no more play.

If I did anything else I would bore and sleeve the top but there is almost no play the way it is.
 
jwmay said:
Well you really hurt my feelings there with such a mean thing to say about my favorite place to shop. But I’ll try to get over it without too many tears.
I think they’ve got a bucket sale going this weekend. I sure wish I needed something that would fit in a bucket. Lol
Click to expand...
I've got tons of HF tools. Some good, some bad, some really nice. I've got 4 of their angle grinders and cannot find fault with them. My Icon combination wrenches are extremely nicely done.

As with anything, buyer beware.

I learned to drill holes with HF drill bits. Thousands of holes with crap drill bits. Thousands of successful holes. I'm glad I learned on cheap stuff because now I only buy quality but I'm not destroying them because I know how to use them properly.
 
I still drill some holes with HF drill bits. Well my 115pc set is HF cobalt, I don't use them that often but they work for me. I've got a decent sharpener too. Their other drills really do suck though.

Can't believe I'm saying this but I don't mind buying from HF now that Sears is gone (for certain things). I'm not ashamed to admit it either like I used to. My first lathe was a HF 8x12.

HF has came a long way since I first bought from them in the late 90s. Took me a while to accept that they have actually improved a lot for various things, but not all. I still see a lot of people who will never accept that they have gotten better & automatically assumes everything they sell is made in China. I vowed to never by hand tools like ratchets, sockets, wrenches, screwdrivers, or electric power tools from them. Fast forward to today I still won't but only cause I don't need to. Some of those things I have purchased for my current job.

Speaking of my current job, my work supplied us with some basic HF tools, some things I bought myself from HF. I use the heck out of them & don't treat them nicely. Surprisingly they have been holding up very well. I use their chrome sockets with an impact driver, haven't broke one yet, I did just round one off though after 9 months but it still works. And I can get it warrantied with no questions asked too if I wanted.

Funny how the tables have turned. I still have all my Snap-on, Matco, & other quality name brand tools from my previous job working on cars 20+ yrs ago but I keep/use it all at home. My current job (automotive but not repairs), 90% of what I use are cheap generic brands tools.

They seem to be replacing/upgrading various items over the past years. Wonder why they haven't done so with the bench grinder stand. People haven't complained enough about them or are they a low sales item?
 
darkzero said:
I still drill some holes with HF drill bits. Well my 115pc set is HF cobalt, I don't use them that often but they work for me. I've got a decent sharpener too. Their other drills really do suck though.

Can't believe I'm saying this but I don't mind buying from HF now that Sears is gone (for certain things). I'm not ashamed to admit it either like I used to. My first lathe was a HF 8x12.

HF has came a long way since I first bought from them in the late 90s. Took me a while to accept that they have actually improved a lot for various things, but not all. I still see a lot of people who will never accept that they have gotten better & automatically assumes everything they sell is made in China. I vowed to never by hand tools like ratchets, sockets, wrenches, screwdrivers, or electric power tools from them. Fast forward to today I still won't but only cause I don't need to. Some of those things I have purchased for my current job.

Speaking of my current job, my work supplied us with some basic HF tools, some things I bought myself from HF. I use the heck out of them & don't treat them nicely. Surprisingly they have been holding up very well. I use their chrome sockets with an impact driver, haven't broke one yet, I did just round one off though after 9 months but it still works. And I can get it warrantied with no questions asked too if I wanted.

Funny how the tables have turned. I still have all my Snap-on, Matco, & other quality name brand tools from my previous job working on cars 20+ yrs ago but I keep/use it all at home. My current job (automotive but not repairs), 90% of what I use are cheap generic brands tools.

They seem to be replacing/upgrading various items over the past years. Wonder why they haven't done so with the bench grinder stand. People haven't complained enough about them or are they a low sales item?
Click to expand...
They must not get returns on the grinder stand. People just deal with it. Not many options to buy a stand locally except HF.
 
I lagged my 2 HF stands to the concrete with Red Heads, plumbed the vertical pipe with a level then welded the base to the tube and the top to the tube. After all that, they are very stable.
 
SO in effect we can consider the stands to be kits, like other low end Chinese stuff. Nothing new here.
 
I buy from Harbor Freight a lot. People complaining about them should have seen some of the crap tools from 70 years ago when I started to do production machine shop work. I consider their stuff to be basic tools that you can improve on if you know what you are doing. Many home shop users blame the tool rather than learn how make them work. Their drills bits are all I buy now for home shop work. When I started working many drills were carbon steel. Talk about bad drills And tool bits. I don’t care if I use hss or carbide tools in my lathes now. Because I am not making a thousand of the same part Anymore. And most homeshop users use the easiest materials to work with. I used to work with some of the toughest materials. Because that was what the blue print called for.
 
I have had 2 Harbor Freight grinder stands for 25+ years now. The 3 foot bases are MUCH more substantial than what is shown in the pictures above. The bases have enough mass that I have never mounted them to anything, the stand just stands on its own. Kind of a HF thing, they have probably had 25 different grinder stands from 25 different low bidders over the past 25 years. Even the first two pictures in this thread have different base castings on the HF grinder stands.

Nothing beats a cast iron brake drum from a semi for a grinder stand base!
 
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