Steals and Deals at HB -- not 300W Halogen bulbs

[Bill]

I appreciate knowing the deals people find at HB so I thought I would share my most recent experience which ended about 5 minutes ago.

I bought 3 packages of 300 W Halogen bulbs (2-packs) for $1.00 per package (warning?).

2 of the bulbs glowed "dim" out of the package, and 2 of the bulbs made an annoying vibrating noise (I replaced the 2nd one faster than the first, after I determined where the noise was coming from--determining this was not trivial due to the nature of the lamps--it's not like you can look at them when they are turned on!). The other 2 bulbs worked just fine.

I just replaced one of the noisy bulbs with an "expensive" $2 bulb, and it works just great. Even at "1/4th the price" the savings is not worth the trouble unless you are indifferent to the level of brightness or the vibrating noise. Since I use the lamps in my home, for me, these factors weren't negotiable.

Well, you have been warned :)

Bill

[Doug Miller]

HB?

Did you mean HF (Harbor Freight aka Horrible Fright) or HD (Home Depot)? Or is there some other chain I'm not aware of?

[Bill]

Yes, Harbor Freight.... Sorry about that.

Bill

[mac davis]

I think that Bill meant Harbor "fright", Doug..

mac

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[Joe]

I have bought several items from them and have been well satisfied. Just be aware of what you buy, there's a lot of junk and some good stuff too.

[Bill]

Yes, I was just sharing that the Halogen bulbs at HF were not among the good stuff. Since only 2 of 6 bulbs worked well, using them was way more aggravation than it was worth. I don't have anything against the store, but I feel like I learned a lesson.

Bill

[Lew Hodgett]

RE: Subject

Don't think I'd be very comfortable with their Trojan knock offs.

Lew

[mac davis]

Hell, I've been helping support them for years ;-]

Imho, can't beat their bar clamps, for the money.. You just have to know that you're not paying quality prices and you can't expect quality stuff..

I've been trying to kill my HF belt/disk sander for years and it won't die.. OTOH, their sandpaper really sucks..

Looking around the shop, I have a LOT of cheap, orange power tools from them.. grinders, drill/drivers, shop lights, etc... How bad can a 4" grinder for $20 be, if it lasts through a few years of abuse..

mac

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[Lew Hodgett]

Just for funzies, bought the $20, right angle grinder, put on a 24 grit sanding disk and went to work cleaning up some fiberglass.

POS didn't even make it thru the afternoon.

YMMV

Lew

[Mike O.]

We needed a bunch of 6" C-clamps to clamp up two bending rails. We had about half as many as we needed and called the big box guys. Each store had 3 or 4 each. We stopped at HF and bought a fifteen 6" (all they had) and three more 8". The 6" were $5.99 and the 8" were $7.99. They worked fine and were almost half the price of the ones at the big box stores. I also like their canvas drop cloths. They sell a 10 oz canvas 9x12 for about $17 and they seem to hold up well.

I've never tried any of their power tools. Mike O.

[krw]

I bought a pile of C-clamps on sale for $1.99 to $3.99 each. I decided that a HF C-clamp couldn't be any different than a BORG C- Clamp so outfitted my shop. I also bought a bunch of their bar clams (also at deep sales prices) to supplement my Irwins. I just figured out that the HF 60" bar clamps are 60" long. :-(

Haven't tried them. I paid a bundle at the BORG for mine. I didn't live in an area with an HF store front and wouldn't have bought that sort of thing unseen.

I bought a couple of their drills - complete garbage. I also have their 10" sliding miter saw which is quite good for the price. I have it on a stand (DeWalt) that cost significantly more than the saw.

[mac davis]

That's really surprising! I recommended them to a friend that does swimming pool work a few years ago, because he was going through Mikita grinders like they were disposable.. he bought a dozen of the HF cheapies and said that they lasted longer than anything else he'd used..

I don't do a lot of grinding, but I've abused mine a lot, mostly with cutting wheels, and it's been great...

OTOH, I have heard that sometimes with HF, you might have to return 1 or 2 to get a good one?

mac

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[Lew Hodgett]

Basic fact of fiberglass boat building life;

Fiber glass dust destroys ALL wood working tools.

Some just last a little longer than others.

For me, Milwaukee had the best track record.

YMMV

Lew

[Kevin]

I never had good luck with the HF halogen bulbs. I bought the $2 variety and it's been good...

[Bill]

That was the point of my post. The $.50 bulbs (on sale) on the average are worth several dollars worth of aggravation. I'm not interested in driving back to get a replacement. I just wanted to share my experience in this forum as I appreciate it when others do the same.

I bought a digital caliper from them for less than $10 a few months back that seems pretty good. I haven't had a chance to use it on a real project yet.

Bill