I'm taking this opportunity to comment on the changes in Harbor Freight and their inventory. I've got two door knockers that came from Harbor Freight years ago. They are different in appearance from these, looking like a hand holding a large steel ball. They work just fine, look pretty cool, and were a great purchase for very little money.

What happened to the days when you could wander through the Harbor Freight catalog or store and find all sorts of interesting oddities? Park benches and toys and just fun stuff to buy? All gone. How sad. I rarely stop at the store when I drive by anymore and then only when there is something specific I want. No more just browsing the store. Just isn't the fun place it used to be. Sometimes these purchases were little better than junk, but more often than not they were fun or even worked way better than they should have for the price. And none of the bad stopped me from spending money.

Some of the stuff was an amazing value for the money. The "cast iron" benches were pretty neat. The threaded rod cutter is a tool I treasure. It works so very well - but, gone from their inventory. Makes me a little sad. Thanks for listening to my lament.

I highly rate harbor freight

Saw sharpener #2 bit the dust this morning in a puff of blue smoke. I've owned this for about 4 years, haven't used it that much, but it did a pretty good job of sharpening chainsaw chains. I took #2 apart and found that the adhesive that hold the magnets to the motor housing had gotten hot enough to let go. The magnets hit and stuck to the rotor and tore the windings up and that folks is all she wrote. The housing never even became warm to the touch. It has no ventilation whatsoever. And honest, I wasn't running it long or hard.

So, I picked up Harbor Freight saw sharpener #3 this afternoon and it took about 10 minutes to get it set up and running. A similar, but different saw sharpener, the number on the new model is 68221. The mounting holes matched up with the mount I'd made to clamp the sharpener in a vise. The saw clamp mechanism has been improved(?), but the old one matches up and works with the new sharpener. Hopefully the motor is better put together than the previous.

Its an entry level ultrasonic cleaner. It works and for the price works very well. The size is the real limiting factor here. It does a beautiful job of cleaning eyeglasses, which it holds with some room to spare. I use it to clean inkjet printheads and it does very well at that.

I've had this one for about 6 years, it has given no problems. It doesn't get used that often, but has always worked. There is a test of ultrasonic cleaners using strips of aluminum foil )Google "ultrasonic cleaner aluminum foil" if you are interested. It does what the tests say it should. Not an aggressive cleaner, making it ideal for more delicate things.

I see the larger size is on sale, maybe that's in my future. Another case of bigger is probably better.

A friend loaned me a similar tool in Black and Decker, to put in cement Tapcon anchors. His worked well. I bought this tool to see if it would work. It does. Plenty of power. Today I used it to put in self drilling hex head sheet metal screws, and it did a terrific job of that. The plastic clamshell case stinks a lot, not sure why. The stink reduced after several weeks. As for me, I really like this tool. The charger is good, also. Has lights for charging, or full charged. Which is nice.