Kevin Warnock

Harbor Freight metal shear, press brake and slip roll machine

I’ve been aware of chain hoists for most of my life. Today for the first time I used a chain hoist — a very useful device.

I didn’t think I had a need for a hoist. I once thought I needed one so I could lift boxes into the attic for storage. It turned out it was practical to carry the boxes up a ladder, so I donated to Goodwill Industries of San Francisco the electric Harbor Freight hoist I had purchased for the attic project.

Yesterday I discovered I had a new and immediately pressing need for a hoist. I regretted I had donated the brand new electric hoist to charity. But after today, I am thrilled I donated the electric hoist, because I now know the wonders of a manual hoist.

I paid about USD $40.00 for a brand new 1 ton Harbor Freight chain hoist. This weighs 22 pounds — I received tremendous value for my money. The hoist was on sale for $44.95 but I had a 20% off coupon that brought the price down.

I needed a hoist because yesterday I bought a heavy machine tool that weighs 300 pounds. The staff at Harbor Freight in Pleasant Hill, California loaded it into my car trunk. They had a hydraulic scissor lift table to wheel the machine to the edge of my trunk lip, and then they just tilted it in, without having to ever really lift it.

When I got home, even with three of my roommates helping, I could not safely remove the machine from my trunk. I became scared we might drop it on our feet, so I called off the attempt once I fully appreciated just how heavy 300 pounds is, particularly when it’s in a large wooden crate you can’t really grasp. Thank you to my roommates for trying to help me. I appreciate your willingness to help and your enthusiasm for living here.

I headed back to Harbor Freight with the crate still sticking out of the trunk at 45 degrees.

I got the hoist, a D anchor with a 10,000 pound limit and some lashing straps. I used two 4 inch 1/4 x 20″ lag bolts to screw the D anchor into a 2 x 12″ floor joist in my garage. I positioned my trunk directly under the anchor and hooked the hoist the the D anchor. Then I wrapped two lashing straps around the wooden crate and hooked them over the hoist load hook.

Harbor Freight chain hoist

With a full face protective shield on, I pulled on the ‘up’ chain. For every foot of travel of this chain, I estimate the load chain moved about half an inch.

What’s so great about a chain hoist is you can safely let go at any time and the load will not fall. To lower the load, you pull slightly on the ‘up’ side of the chain and then begin to pull the ‘down’ side of the chain. You can let go at any point and the load will stay put.

I pulled the box all the way out of the trunk and then drove the car forward a few feet. I returned to the hoist and lowered the crate to the floor and detached the hoist. I didn’t need to bother my roommates at all, and I felt safe during the entire process.

I will leave the D anchor attached the ceiling in case I ever need to lift anything else out of my trunk.

I plan to keep the hoist, as it will no doubt be useful for some of the projects I’ve been dreaming about building.

I’ll write a separate post about the heavy machine tool I now have in my garage.

I’ve written about Harbor Freight before.

Harbor Freight is a magical tool store that inspires me to try to do great things. Home Depot and Lowes as tool stores are pathetic. Of course those large retailers sell mostly items that are not tools, so I still do shop at those stores more often than I like to admit.

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Harbor Freight Tools logo

I love the tool store Harbor Freight. To my knowledge, there’s no store like it in the San Francisco Bay Area, and perhaps in the entire United States.

What’s to love?

The prices are just so far below those at Home Depot and Lowes and the neighborhood hardware store that you can afford to by twice or three times as many tools. I can’t think of any other example of a large sector where just one business dominates the bargain priced end of the business as does Harbor Freight.

Some will say Harbor Freight tools are junk, but I disagree. They are quite good enough for home hobbyist use. I’ve only had one power tool break, but I was really overdoing it – getting it too hot by continuous use for over an hour. It was an electric planer. I replaced it for a new one for just $39.95. Not a big deal, and I learned my lesson to give the tools more of a break to cool down.

I fear that if Home Depot or Lowes were to acquire Harbor Freight they would either raise the prices or shut it down, to avoid the competition.

What’s my latest super bargain purchase from Harbor Freight? An 11 horsepower gas engine with an iron clad two year extended warranty where they give you a new engine if the original one breaks. All you have to do is bring in in any condition what’s left of the engine and they immediately hand you a new unopened new engine in the box. All of this for under $300! I am going to make a super quiet battery charger from this engine by having it run at idle, not full speed. Idle is about 1,800 RPM, like a high end diesel generator that costs $5,000 and up.  I don’t need or want the 5,000 – 10,000 watts that are produced by a high end diesel generator. I would be thrilled with a quiet 1,500 watt generator, which is what I hope to get from this Harbor Freight engine run through my Trace SW4024 inverter via a Delco 105 amp 24 volt alternator, I picked one up last week on EBay today for less than $100 including shipping. I will put this engine in a sound box and cool it with a pair of Honda Civic car engine radiators I got new from Amazon for $160 including a dedicated 12 volt radiator fan matched to the radiator that will be outside the sound deadening enclosure. Once I convert the engine to run on propane, I’ll have an electric start quiet, environmentally friendly and very quiet generator for a very low price. Should the engine blow up for any reason, I get a brand new one with no questions asked. I could even carry a spare since they weigh just 74 pounds.

Harbor Freight makes inventing, building and experimenting easier to afford, and I’m glad they appear to be thriving.

Even so, there is probably a dark side to Harbor Freight such as cruel working conditions that I don’t know about. If you have any information about such things, please post a thoughtful comment. I could be persuaded to not shop there if warranted, but to my knowledge their products are made in China, just like I suspect most of the tools for sale at the big box super centers.