Originally published at: Makita vs Fakita: $140 driver vs $30 counterfeit | Boing Boing
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I just built from the ground up a 500 square foot shed using nothing but Harbor Freight tools. Even the $35.00 roofing nailer held up during 7000 nails, I know that because the box held 7000 nails, used them on the siding application too. Moral of the story, cheap and cheerful saves the day!
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Im a hobbyist and shop off brands without trouble. If I was a pro with deadlines I would be buying the best I could afford.
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It still a good question to understand why such Chinese product have to get the exact same color and almost name if it’s a product by itself?
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That is how counterfeiting works.
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I was ecstatic when Harbor Freight opened a store about a mile from my house. Lots of cool stuff. One of these days I’m going to pull the trigger on that electric fly swatter that looks like a plastic tennis racquet.
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We have one. I like it so much that we now have a backup waiting in the wings, because about 0.4% of the time, I accidentally hit something more solid than it is. Which has shown me that they are amazingly durable for what they are, but they are nowhere near indestructible.
What I’ve learned so far is that the trick is to move it as little and as slowly as you can. Don’t use it as a tennis racket, instead try to either slowly bring it into the fly’s path at the last possible moment, or sweep them from behind, moving not much faster than they are.
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This was once said about me…
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Cheap power tools are great if you only use them occasionally. However, some cheap drills have alignment issues; you can test this immediately by chucking in a drill bit and running the drill while holding the bit alongside a straightedge. A drill with bad alignment is pretty much worthless.
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And if the neighbor you loan it to “can’t seem to find it” once you ask for its return, you wouldn’t want to ring his neck as much.
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Dude, you never lend tools, ever. Sorry the tool fairy didn’t hip yous up to that…
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Something something intellectual rights…
Something something abusive factory conditions in China… (not to mention modern day concentration camps)…
but they’re cheap!
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How does something that’s pretty much nothing but motor and rotor even survive if it has alignment issues? Are the tolerances on the bearings sloppy enough that they can just roll with it; or are the tolerances of the chuck(either where it engages with the rotor or somewhere in the graspy innards) sufficiently awful that it doesn’t keep the bit parallel to the rotor and introduces the wiggle?
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I think it is more with the linkage to the chuck (or maybe the chuck itself) than with the bearings, and it doesn’t take a very significant degree of misalignment to have a big impact on the drill accuracy. If these parts of the drill are wobbling it probably won’t put that much wear and tear on the motor itself (and if it does, in a cheap drill, any failure will probably be attributed to the cheapness of the drill rather than the wobble).
Here’s an example in a non-budget drill:
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AvE:
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My only real brush with precision tools was some lathe operation in shop class and I’m still deeply uncomfortable watching that; it’s right about the point where something stops being bad on a purely technical level and starts taking on moral aspects of badness.
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Psshawh! Just choose one size smaller bit and the hole will come out on size. More or less.
I loves me some Harbour Freight. Or the Canadian equivalent: Princess Auto. They both smell the same… packing grease.
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Heh!
I loves me some Harbour Freight. Or the Canadian equivalent: Princess Auto. They both smell the same… packing grease.
I bought a $20 HF drill that I keep at my in-laws’ for occasional repairs. First thing I checked was alignment, and was happy to see it was good. As it only gets used a few minutes/year on average (except for one trip where I used it to rebuild a fence and gate) it is perfect for the application. (Unfortunately, those few minutes have been enough to break several HF drill bits.)
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Asking the right question…not, “is it as good as the Makita it obviously copied?” but “Is it worth $30?” No one thinks they are getting a Makita equivalent for 1/4 the price…but is it good enough? Ideally we don’t buy crap — we buy for life or use a tool library — but we don’t live in ideal world.
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This is why I came here… to make sure the real deal was represented.
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