Shopsmith Forums

stumpbuster wrote:The other day I found a coupon from Harbor Freight for 12 inch clamps maximum 7 per customer at $1.99 per clamp. Eureka the deal of the year:D After trucking 25 mi Thur las Vegas traffic (one way). I found the clamps also picked up some other shop essentials. You can always find essentials at harbor freight.
Now I am home and try one of the clamps the squeeze handle breaks off. I think to myself "WOW I must be strong cool".
Now I am helping the 8 year old neighbor girl fix her doll house, hand her one of my brand new Harbor Freight clamps and she breaks the squeeze handle off.
Just saying you get what you pay for.
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Don't discard the plastic pads. They might fit on some of your other clamps.

I bought one of these for the $1.99 price. Wanted to buy more but they only had one. When I got it home I realized why that one was not sold. There is a simple design failure. I will use my rain check and go back and get some more however because I can't find a clamp that good for $2.25 ($1.99 + $.26 for the bolt) anywhere else.

For $2.25 it's a very good light duty clamp.

Apparently I'm not the only one who has done this (link previously posted)

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Paul M

I agree with Paul, make the simple modification and they make a pretty good cheapo light-duty clamp for the money. But only if you catch them on sale. Now that I've read everyone else's fix, that sounds more like what I did. I just know that replacing one piece (the bolt) made it much better than the ones I haven't fixed yet.

HF has its place in my woodworking scheme. I don't need any big woodworking tools...that's what Shopsmiths are for, but I've used some of their stuff with good success. For example, I bought one of their $12 moisture meters & did a side by side test with a friend's Wagner pinless $400 meter & the readings were nearly identical. He was a little jealous.
I have used their cordless drills over the years & at about $15 (with 20% off coupon) am happy. When the battery no longer takes a charge, I'll toss it. The previous HF drill outlasted Black & Decker that was much more expensive.
I'm not saying they're great for all stuff, but they've been good for me many times & if there's a problem, they always have taken care of it, no questions asked.

Took a couple pix to illustrate what I posted earlier.

Main difference between what I did and others(bolt) was the inclusion of a spacer as a 'bearing' and tapped holes.

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I've always found HF to be either a hit or miss on tools. Sometimes they have some decent stuff and sometimes it is junk (over the holiday's I bought some stronghold brand clamps there at a good price). Last year it took them over 9 months to get in a stand that I was looking to purchase. You just have to look closely at the item and determin if it fits your needs/price. And, then of course the big issue would be if they have any in stock or not. They almost always seem to have a stocking problem.

Hadn't broken the handles off of those, but I've never found them to clamp too tightly. They slip easily on the bar, and won't pull up nearly as tight as say the Irwin clamps.

Avoid their plastic spring clamps! Nasty habit of exploding or shattering in use. The sharp and hard bits of plastic get launched hard when these clamps fail.

stumpbuster wrote:The other day I found a coupon from Harbor Freight for 12 inch clamps maximum 7 per customer at $1.99 per clamp. Eureka the deal of the year:D After trucking 25 mi Thur las Vegas traffic (one way). I found the clamps also picked up some other shop essentials. You can always find essentials at harbor freight.
Now I am home and try one of the clamps the squeeze handle breaks off. I think to myself "WOW I must be strong cool".
Now I am helping the 8 year old neighbor girl fix her doll house, hand her one of my brand new Harbor Freight clamps and she breaks the squeeze handle off.
Just saying you get what you pay for.
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The same experience as you and it looks like everybody else. I use them for stop block clamps or latley to test fit a box joint project where you don't need alot of pressure yet and the plastic is good on the surface.

I want to hear a success story from someone attempting to return faulty goods to harbor freight. My only experience had me leaving the store with steam shooting from my ears. Jim

fjimp wrote:I want to hear a success story from someone attempting to return faulty goods to harbor freight. My only experience had me leaving the store with steam shooting from my ears. Jim

What had you steamed?

I've had no problem with a return at all. Walked in with my receipt, walked out with money in hand.