Harbor Freight Tools, I quit.

[driftpin]

Princess Auto

You never know what you'll find or if you will find it again. A lot of manufacturer's clearance stuff. They had the last of the American made Pony F-clamps for instance. It's worth while to cruise through every once in a while. Dangerous though, like Costco, they don't let you out until you spend $100, chuckle.

Their customer service is legendary. They started out on Princess street in Winnipeg, thus the name.After the war they sold mail order surplus to prairie farmers. Build your own welder from a bomber generator. Parts for you Jeep or Power Wagon. Big tires for you liquid manure spreaders. Some of the things in their catalogues when I lived up north. They stock more stuff now on a regular basis now, better quality I might add, but aren't as much fun.

Sounds like Warshawsky & Co., Chicago. I enjoyed getting their catalogs, and I still have tools I bought from them, which I still use, one of-which is a set of bourdon tube gauges for synchronizing up-to 4 carbs on my motorcycles, they must-be close to 40 years-old. I bought some SS hoses for motorcycle brakes, and though the manufacturer wasn't named in the catalog, when I opened the box, they were earl's SS hoses. I was pleasantly-surprised.

I have a set of Warshawsky & Co.-supplied metric flare nut wrenches, now rotated to backup duty, but they never failed to work for me. I bought a set of S-K metric and SAE flare-nut wrenches last year when they had a Garage Journal sale.

 

[supersteve]

My question, what do you expect when entering a harbor freight?

The first thing I expect is the smell. A pungent miasma of toxic carcinogens off-gassed by a thousand crappy inferior Chinese knock offs. No true American can stand it for long. I usually end up running out screaming.

 

[Ryan]

I think we are all growing tired of this subject. Some people use HF. Some people don’t. We are gonna leave it at that for awhile.