Rate the Harbor Freight Tools Thread- Pass or Fail?

[Inferno]

At least none of you have your old abacus.

I came to machine shop in 1978. We learned the basics of a slide rule but then were required to have a calculator later. By the time I left school the TI-55 was the main tool needed for math.

My first calculator was given to me in 1975. My parents managed to get it for $5. It did the basics and I didn't really need it. I was a whiz at basic math. Plus I had to beg my parents for a couple batteries every time I used the thing. It was red LED and ate batteries in about an hour. A couple years later I has a LED watch. You pushed the button to light the LEDs to see the time. Again, my parents hated buying batteries so it was a month long gimmick and then went into t a dresser drawer.

For the Made in Japan part of the thread.
My dad was a truck driver. He picked up stuff at the docks in LA a lot. He had just bought a couple minibikes and my mom was going to make them work for me and my older sister. They needed stuff.
As luck would have it, a shipment of Honda motorcycles had come in with bad VIN/titles and they were destroying them right there at the docks. A few guys with sledge hammers were, literally, pounding the bikes to death.
My dad talked them into NOT destroying some handle bars and seats. We had brand new Honda seats and handlebars on our minibikes. YAY.

There were a LOT of things that came to the US not quite right and those often ended up being Christmas and Birthday presents. I had a multi-channel radio with a built in color organ. It was great. I had AM/FM/TV/Weather/Short wave, etc. (One night I found the frequency of voice pagers and had a lot of fun with that).
The radio was supposed to be destroyed because the box said PSYCHEDERIC radio. Too many survived and it became a "thing" for a while.
The radio looked exactly like this but had way more bands to choose from.

 

[hotrats]

At least none of you have your old abacus.

My wife is Asian, Vietnamese. She counts to 30 on her fingers. Fast, accurate. And keeps going. Her oldest daughter is a whiz in math. That got her a job in accounting without the required education. She keeps getting promoted, and seems to be the "go to" person.

 

[SonofHarold - Metal Carver]

How many remember when anything from Japan was considered junk??? But then they got better.
Then anything from China was/is junk, but now they are getting better.

Oh yeah! I have though about this before as well. It does seem that some things "From China" have improved to at least acceptable over the last 7 to 10 years. But... there is still a lot of junk too. Have to be carefull, if it's cheap, there is a reason it's cheap no mater were it's made.

India products Seems to be China's were about 20 or so years ago. (?)

 

[Larry$]

I also am old enough to remember when “made in Japan”=junk. I put myself through college doing work on Toyota’s because of the bad design of the distributor mechanical advance dying and falling into the bottom of the distributor and binding. Then taking out the jack shaft. I could do one for half what the garage wanted and make out like a fat rat. But meanwhile everybody thought if you got 80 to 100,000mi out of an American car and hopefully 10yrs that was fantastic. But that “junk” Toyota could get 2-3x’s that no sweat. Yeah, they weren’t as big and comfortable but you spent way less on gas and repair.

I can’t give HF tools a universal thumbs up or down because every tool is made in a different factory and I think they change suppliers all the time and workers. The QC is all over the map as can be seen in their feedback on their site. But if the basic frame and components are sound I have a chance of being able to have a useful tool that I would never otherwise afford or run into used. My current case in point is a sheetmetal 3 in 1, shear, brake and roller.

This is one of those tools you are best off finding unused as setup is not often right. And trying to use and abuse it as is can make it almost unfixable. I found mine unused on the original pallet from HF. The manual is only good for parts breakdown. I figured out the adjustment of the shear by observation. There is a lot of the usual cosmolene gunk to clean, but it also kept it in pristine shape of sitting in a storage for 20+yrs. After getting it adjusted it sheared 18ga cleanly but seemed a lot of effort. I suspected the cams that basically do all the work in the arms that are the linkage to the main attach points. I pulled one arm and the bushing looked like a 3yld did it. Not really finished, rough, with old paint on the surface. I decided to see if I could find a bearing and found a suitable caged needle bearing on eBay for $25! So made a pin for the attach point to pin the two arms back together and bored them out 2mm on the mill. Now have to fix the key way on one of the cams as they messed the bed setting it up. Probably have to machine a special key.

I may have the same model as yours. Hasn't been used a lot and pretty crude but better than nothing. What I miss is the ability to hem easily.

 

[Larry$]

Ah yes, I still keep a 6 inch slide rule on my desk at work, Some of the younger people will ask what kind of a ruler that is with aall those markings on it. The head QC guy got all upset that I had a ruler with no calibration sticker on it. I have to explain that it is not a ruler for measuring, it is my old pocket calculator, way back, I kept the big 16 inch calculator on my desk.
Yes I remember paying $100 for my first pocket electronic calculator that could only add subtract multiply divide and percent.

I used HP for so long, Still do, I still use RPN for the calculator I have in my phone, That really messes with people IF I let them borrow my calculator.

Never understood why RPN wasn't the standard method. Much better system. HP has dropped it from most of their new machines. Too bad.
For those not familiar RPN stands for Reverse Polish Notation (I think).

 

[Larry$]

At least none of you have your old abacus.

Not true! I've got the Japanese version that I bought while in Japan in the '60s. All the clerks there used them instead of the calculating functions on the check out registers. I don't know if I can still do all the functions but they are an ingenious contraption.

 

[SonofHarold - Metal Carver]

Ah yes, I still keep a 6 inch slide rule on my desk at work, Some of the younger people will ask what kind of a ruler that is with aall those markings on it. The head QC guy got all upset that I had a ruler with no calibration sticker on it. I have to explain that it is not a ruler for measuring, it is my old pocket calculator, way back, I kept the big 16 inch calculator on my desk.
Yes I remember paying $100 for my first pocket electronic calculator that could only add subtract multiply divide and percent.

I used HP for so long, Still do, I still use RPN for the calculator I have in my phone, That really messes with people IF I let them borrow my calculator.

I worked for a time in a testing lab with a pretty good young kid who graduated from an engineering program while working in the lab as well. I bought him a slide rule as a kind gag graduation gift. Thought he'd appreciate it, but he had ino dea what it was... The best I could remember was to show him how to multiply with it.

 

[C-Bag]

I may have the same model as yours. Hasn't been used a lot and pretty crude but better than nothing. What I miss is the ability to hem easily.

I have no illusions of perfection here. But it turns out the original design they copied that I think was Polish was not received any better that the HF version. I think it's like all "jack of all, master of none" kinda thing, it's better than nothing. As I've used it and have more projects for it that I want to do I'll see if there's any tweaks that will make it more functional. The fix of the cams has helped smooth it out. I've not done a large shear with it, but I'm hoping that will be where my mod will show whether I'm actually improving the design or just turd polishing.

 

[Gaffer]

Never understood why RPN wasn't the standard method. Much better system. HP has dropped it from most of their new machines. Too bad.
For those not familiar RPN stands for Reverse Polish Notation (I think).

My HP 12C (circa 1985) stopped working about 10 years ago. It was an awesome calculator, and it didn't take much to get used to RPN. I agree it is a better system. I remember my dad using a slide rule when I was a kid. How times have changed.

 

[Superburban]

I guess I am a bit younger then some of you. I still remember the day back in the 60's, when my Dad got his first calculator, TI SR6 I thin it was. He played with that thing all night. When he passed away about 10 years ago, I found it in his office, still going strong.

He also had a Curta calculator, that he kept in his briefcase back then. I never got to play with it enough to understand it.

In the 80's when I went to college, I had a nice pocket scientific solar powered calculator. I still remember going into a calc test, and the sun went behind some storm clouds, and the calculator was no good. I had to do every thing by hand. I did not get everything answered, but did get almost a perfect score on what I did get done.It still hurt my end grade. After that, I always had 2 calculators.