Harbor Freight tools thread.

Yes, its great! I've done my bumper and my 62 Swap with it. My buddy did his bumper with it for his wife's 4R too. It's his, so I'm considering buying my own.

 

Well it looks like further research has led me to the Eastwood 140. It's the exact same machine inside and is $100 less, so I'll probably be going with it. Also has a 3 year warranty vs. 90 that the Titanium has.

 

That one only runs on 120V it looks like, the Titanium can do both 120 and 240.

 

Both are 120v only machines, and are both inverter style. Has the same internal mechanism inside from what it all looks like.

 

The Titanium 170 is 120/240v, that’s what I got. It’s been fantastic so far!
My buddy has a little Eastwood something that has served him well too.

 

Maybe I was thinking of this and got confused? Now I'm lost. I could've sworn it was the 140 he has. I could be wrong, I'll admit that. @Delta09

 

Where are you reading this? I am all for the same welder cheaper than harbor freight

 

I can't confirm everything 100%, but the specs are the same and if you look at the internal pictures it is the same. The control is a little different, but the rest looks the same. Just ordered the Eastwood a little while ago. Was $387 with PA sales tax and free shipping...

https://www.eastwood.com/eastwood-140-amp-mig-welder.html

 

Was looking at those for a upgrade..
We don’t have one available very close..
Mmmmm

 

Does this model have the 30 amp 240 volt twistloc outlet?

 

yes, and it also has a 30 amp 120 twistlock.

 

Replaced the drain plug and fill dip stick with magnetic ones, and ordered a cover. Happy with how it turned out, and hopefully won't need to use it but it'll be nice to know it's there if I need it

 

Snap on flank drive sockets are crazy nice, at work I use to have normal husky sockets and bluepoint rounded bolt extractors that work very well now that I own the flank drive sockets I reach for them instead of the extractors 95% of the time.

 

I’ve used plenty of older Snap-on stuff but none of their new stuff like those flank sockets.
I don’t doubt they’re top notch, if I could afford it I’d have a full Snap-on setup. I’ll never be a professional though so I wouldn’t be able to justify that

 

I barely justify them using them professionally, a lot of the low level snap on stuff doesn't have the tech(for lack of a better word) to make a drastic noticeable difference over husky/craftsman/gearwrench/icon, its the special stuff where that extra couple hundred dollars is worth it to easily remove that slightly rounded exhaust nut that you have to remove the cab to use a extractor, I always tell the new quicklube guys just to buy a large husky/harbor freight set and expand from there since it will do most of the work. All of my non special impact sockets are harbor freight/SK/Ebay special, since the tool truck ones aren't any better.

 

That’s a good point to consider, I’m sure those guys appreciate that advice in the long run.
If I ever get into anything that deep I’ll have to look into some of the specialty snap-on stuff.

 

What is it? EDIT: Nvm it's a generator. Thought I was looking at some kind of motorized cooler or something.

 

i wish, that would be neat too!

 

I ended up getting two of the 2-gal Fortress Ultra Quiet Compressors based on this thread and reviews.


Decided to keep both, so the positive aspects first.

2 inline filters, the swiveling orange 25' coil, and that blow gun is <$25. Can't beat the pricing. Also, left all connected overnight, no pressure leaks and the gague does not budge down. Somewhat surprised about that. The pump up speed is quick, around a minute.


Now the downsides.

This is sold as a '60 dBA' compressor. Using the app SPLnFFT which is pretty accurate, @ 1' it measures 76 dBA and @ 16' it measures 65 dBA. I did not look up their definition of 60 dBA, but this does not match mine. It is much much quieter than the HD red Porter Cable 6 gal pancake compressor, so 76 dBA is good enough even if somewhat misleading in the marketing dept. Also the flex hose from the compressor to tank appears to be stretched to too tight of a bend radius for my standards, so I plan to replace it sometime with metal tubing. Notably reviews do include people mentioning this piece failing and the quality and mounting of it definitely qualify as 'Hazard Fraught' to me. It is the thin crappy version of this type of SS over rubber tubing which you can easily pinch together, not the more solid type that costs more. Also, it is sold as a 135 PSI compressor and when it kicks on it does hit 135. But it bleeds down to 90 PSI before restarting. This is essentially the limit of how low it can go and still be useful for nailers. I got these at $159 ea. last week, and noticed they bumped the price to $179 to offset Black Friday discounts lol.





I was at HD looking for some fittings to replace that crappy and poorly mounted flex tubing and checked the Makita equivalent for $199 which has the same compressor+motor and output manifold. The Makita unit has all metal tubing (all rubber/plastic on the HF one) and in retrospect having me upgrade that one tube to metal will cost more in time than the $40 upcharge for the Makita. I like the Fortress, and will like it more after upgrading the sketchy tubing, but if I had a do-over I'd just buy the Makita.

 

If you crack open the pressure switch housing you can adjust the PSI it kicks back on at, FYI. And FWIW, that flex piece has held on my 1 gal for 2+ yrs now. Not all of them are going to fail. I don't disagree that the makita would be worth the extra $40 though.