1" Drive Air Tools

Hey guys, need some quick advice. We have a 1/2" drive air hammer to remove the nuts from our truck wheels and it just is not enough of a tool.

I'm looking at 1" drive units. Craftsman has a 1" drive, extended anvil (which is necessary to reach inside the deep set wheels) unit on sale for $359. There is also a Chicago Pneumatic unit for $599.

For the extra money I do pick up a bit more torque, but we only need this tool about once a month and I am having a really hard time justifying spending almost twice as much for only marginally more torque. In either case I will end up with substantially more torque than our current 1/2" drive unit offers so I'm curious if anyone sees a problem with the Craftsman brand. Again, understand we don't need this tool on a daily basis, nobody makes their living with the tools we use here so top quality is not essential but it has to be at least 'good enough' to get the job done on a fairly regular basis.

Thoughs?

Oh by the way, I just pulled up the HARBOR FREIGHT website. For $129 they have a 1" drive unit that actually has more torque than the Craftsman or the Chicago Pneumatic units.

HELP!!!!

Bob.......I get all my heavy duty tools here . They have great (usually the lowest) prices & they sell quality tools. The impacts usually come with a free socket set too. Shipping is reasonable also.

Why not use an extension (less $$$) rather than the extended anvil?

Bob
my .02 ... go with the craftsman. IMO...Harbor Freight is lower quality. The CP would be better, but for limited use...craftsman is the way to go.

Wannafish said:

Why not use an extension (less $$$) rather than the extended anvil?

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With the ext...you'll lose some of the torque

BadAttitude said:

With the ext...you'll lose some of the torque

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To this point, we found that even the best quality extensions tend to have some "wobble" to them and that makes the task harder. We only have 1 use for this tool, and that is to change tires on trucks. It makes sense to us to get one that works easier/better so that is why we are going to get type with the long anvil instead of adding an extension.

As for the quality issue, it seems sort of odd, but the cheap-o tool at Harbor Freight actually has the best specs! No I also figure it might fall apart if we drop it so it may not be a real bargain. But at about 1/3 the price of the Craftsman I am considering it. Still undecided on what to do.

Does anyone have any good exprerience with Craftsman Air Tools?
Or bad experience with Harbor Freight Air Tools?
Is there another mid-price brand that compares well to Craftsman?

Bob...I'm sure you know specs are deceiving
the craftsman is probably your best bet $$$ and lifespan wise. Good exp with them too
If I think of another brand, I'll post it

You can always try the Harbor one and return it if it's junk

another thought...unless your guys use a torque wrench to verify torque, stay away from the cheapo guns! I don't think you want to lose a wheel going down the road

Well my G.M. wants the one from Habor Freight. I am leaning strongly for the Craftsman. I'm sure the Habor Freight tool is the "Jinma" of air tools and that bothers me because I just don't see help or support from Harbor Freight. I always consider their tools to be 'disposable' quality. The Sears Hardware down the street from the office has always served us well, stuff is in stock and they stand behind what they sell. In the end, the selection is up to my G.M. but he is going to have to live with the "I Told You So" if he goes with the cheap one and it breaks and I will have to live with the "I Told You So" if he goes with the cheap one and it lasts!



EDIT: We are going to Sears to buy the Craftsman unit. When I mentioned JINMA to my G.M. he started to chuckle and said those tractors they sell at TSC? The discussion ended and quality won out over cheap chinese tools. Craftsman may not be the best, but it should be plenty good for what we need and the pieces of mind of the company behind it is worth something.

Just hope that when you open the box that it doesn't have a made in China label on it. If you lubricate the tool properly, it should last, barring any catastrophic failure of a internal component.

I would have bought the Harbor Freight unit. We used HF tools in my business for many years. We almost never had a failure. My son did break a cast iron pipe cutter (like a large tubing cutter) the first time he tried to use it, because he didn't realize you take little cuts and keep going around; he tried to go all the way through a 3/8" galvanized steel pipe in one rotation!! I'm not sure that a top-quality Rigid cutter would have survived.

The tools that are junk are the Homier stuff and their copies. For example, we used a lot of 4" grinders. We used DeWalt, Craftsman and HF, and they all lasted about the same amount of time. We bought a couple at a Homier sale, and they lasted precisely 10 minutes each before the bearings (or whatever they were using instead of bearings) came to a screeching, smoking halt.

Bob, you'll remember that I bought a sliding compound miter saw at HF a couple of years ago. I bought it specfically to cut HardiPlank. HardiPlank is a cementious material and the dust will chew up power tools as fast as anything you can imagine. There was no way I would use a $600 or higher saw to cut the stuff if a $200 saw could do it. As it happens, I got the saw on sale for $100! Well, here's the update -- I couldn't kill it. I used it to cut the siding for all 4 walls of a 1200 sq ft building. Then, I brought it home, put in a new blade, and have been using it to cut laminate floor planks to length, a fairly precise task. Working great.

I have nothing but praise for HF stuff. I have to wonder, for all the folks who recommend spending more money, how many have actually tried HF stuff and had premature failures? Remember, Craftsman power tools are not lifetime warranteed, are not foolproof, and are probably made in China. Plus, dealing with Sears parts department if something breaks is almost worse than dealing with someone in China. I would much prefer throwing away a $129 wrench and getting another (which I could do a couple of times before I hit the Sears price), than throwing away a $359 wrench because they can't get the right part in less than 2 months.

Don we really did consider the fact that we could throw away 3 HF tools before hitting the price of the Sears unit, but our relationship with Sears is apparently much better than yours was. We've never had a problem getting a part from them, its always been correct and timely. Both me and my G.M.'s experience with HF is one of love & hate. I've purchased many items from them and been happy, and I've also been frustrated by some of their cheaper stuff, I've been put off by their lousy in store service, and their slow shipments of mail order goods (it took nearly 2 weeks to get an undercoating gun that I hoped to use last weekend! Oh and the undercoating spray is not stocked at the store either) I've not tried their power tools so I'll admit ignorance and/or prejudice there but I've snapped in half some of the hand tools, clips, parts, etc that I've purchased.

If I had a 'back up' tool I might be more willing to try a HF tool, but this will be a 'one and only' tool we are buying. The Craftsman 1/2" tool we are replacing is undersized, but when we bought it a decade ago it was large enough for the tasks we used it for (assembling conveyor systems and changing car/van tires) but we've been trying to make it work for much larger tasks and finally figured the right tool for the job is needed.

Gees Don, I have to admit that I've wasted several hundred dollars before I learned to stay away from Harbor Fright no matter what. Sorry, but I have to rate Harbor Fright a notch below the awful Homier crap. Sure, I've taken the broken junk back to HF and they replaced it, but the replacement broke on the first use as well. Unless HF runs a special on some name brand item they happen to stock, I wouldn't recommend my worse enemy to shop there. Sorry again to be so brutal on them, but their junk is complete crap as far as I'm concerned. Heck, the local pawn shops won't even take their tools even for a dollar. If it says "Chicago Electric" or "Chicago" anything on it, forget it. It has zero value even to a pawn shop. They flat out tell me that they don't want the trouble of people bringing the junk back in when it breaks the first time they use it. Nothing is guaranteed from a pawn shop here, but they know almost 100% of the stuff from HF will break, so there is no need to nearly guarantee trouble.

Oh, here is what I recall right off that broke right away on the first use: most Pittsburg hand tools, all Chicago Electric tools including the highly touted 4" grinder, all Chicago Pneumatic tools, and a spring compressor (with a compressed spring in it while it was in my lap) :14_6_12:

Geez Dargo, how do you really feel?

I'll admit that I got a good deal on some welding magnets at H.F. that I am very happy with. They were on sale for $0.99 each so I bought about a half dozen of them. I have not managed to break them yet.

I also bought a couple of those 1000-piece sets of clips, cotter pins, etc. That was a decent deal. But I wouldn't use the clips to support anything that I would walk under. I got some furniture dollies from them for $16 and have them under a couple implements in the garage. No complaints yet.

My thought is that Harbor Freight is where you go for some things, but maybe not for critical things. JMHO.

B_Skurka said:

Geez Dargo, how do you really feel?

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Yeah, I guess that spring compressor sort of did it for me. When the compressor broke, it nicked my left one as it barked off the concrete floor and also grazed my chin as it was launching itself into the ceiling 16' above me!

Better that it stuck in the ceiling than in your left nut.

If it did that you really might hold a grudge!

Hey, to each his own. I guess I'm not as hard on my tools as others.

Bob....... if you still need the undercoat spray gun, I have one I can loan you. Just have to do some looking in the garage, since I haven't used it in 30+ years..

Hey thanks, but my order came in and now I have 3 of them. They only cost $6.99 each but take $10 worth of mineral spirits to clean when you use them to spray 2 part epoxy so I learned that it is cheaper & easier to toss them out after using epoxy.

OkeeDon said:

Hey, to each his own. I guess I'm not as hard on my tools as others.

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Yeah, I can go along with that. I would have to hook a cheater bar on a Craftsman, Mac, or Snap On wrench to bust it where I snap Pittsburgh ones easily with my off hand. There again, half of the stuff I've worked on over the years has been commercial equipment where everything is either stuck or has been on for 20 years.

Dargo said:

Yeah, I can go along with that. I would have to hook a cheater bar on a Craftsman, Mac, or Snap On wrench to bust it where I snap Pittsburgh ones easily with my off hand. There again, half of the stuff I've worked on over the years has been commercial equipment where everything is either stuck or has been on for 20 years.

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LMAO...that reminds me of the time at work once where we were trying to remove a nut that had been on a stud for at least as long as I have been alive. It was probably a 5/8" or 3/4" stud, and the stud didn't protrude above the nut, it was actually recessed a little. We started out with some PB Blaster and channel locks. Nothing. Step up to a pair of 18" slip joints. Nothing. Apply some heat from a plumbing torch. Nothing. By now there are 2 or 3 of us trying to get this nut off. Now we move the a 1/2" drive impact wrench....nothing. More heat with the torch (I think we switched to MAPP). Nothing. Go to the neighbor and get his 1" impact that he uses to work on semi trailers. Off it comes! Dammit!!!! We tristed the stud right off .

So my co-worker shakes the nut out of the socket, and I take it and look at it.

WTF?!?!

Apparently, the reason we couldn't get the nut off the stud was that someone about 40 years ago had applied the most perfect plug weld I have ever seen to the and of the stud and the nut. Unless you loked at it really close and in good light there was no way to tell you were looking at a weld, and not the end of the stud. Every other welded nut I have ever seen has been a little tack on the flat of the nut, but this guy must have been really bored that day.

Anyone remember the old Mopars and I think some Ramblers? They had left hand threads on one side for the wheellugs. Yup, you guessed it! Twisted some of them right off!

My Corvair has left handed an right handed nuts holding the wheels on....

All my vehicles have a right handed nut behind the steering wheel.

Anybody work on the rear brakes of an old Volkswagen? They had a nut holding the drum on that was set somewhere around 300 foot pounds of torque. I had an old 1/2" case hardened wrench handed down from my dad, not a ratchet, just a swivel head. It had a round handle and fit inside a 3' length 3/4" pipe just fine. I could not get that nut off with even that much cheater. I finally jacked the car up and blocked the wrench, let the car down and still has to jump on the bumper to get it off. I then went to a shop and asked what was the deal and found out the specs. Not having a torque wrench that went that high, to re-install it I put the cheater back on and stood on the end. When the cotter pin hole lined up, that was close enough for me.

Starting January 1st, 2006 Harbor Freight will become dealers for Kioti Tractors. It's a great idea. You can buy a new, world class, Kioti Tractor and all the world class tools you'll need to fix it at the same place. One stop shopping!

Viking said:

Starting January 1st, 2006 Harbor Freight will become dealers for Kioti Tractors. It's a great idea. You can buy a new, world class, Kioti Tractor and all the world class tools you'll need to fix it at the same place. One stop shopping!

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Good golly! Just the thought of that combination has me shaking in my socks. I tried to take a nap, but my wife keeps waking me with a back hand and yelling at me to stop shouting "Get 'er Done!" in my sleep.

Dargo said:

Good golly! Just the thought of that combination has me shaking in my socks. I tried to take a nap, but my wife keeps waking me with a back hand and yelling at me to stop shouting "Get 'er Done!" in my sleep.

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Dargo, Kioti corporate has been looking for other outlets for their tractors since traditional dealerships that carry Kioti seem to be dropping the brand or going out of business. I heard that Kioti was considering "Dollar Tree Stores" and "Dollar General" as well but Harbor Freight could provide somewhat of a service department component by way of the sales of hand and power tools to the new Kioti Tractor owner.

Junkman said:

Bob....... if you still need the undercoat spray gun, I have one I can loan you. Just have to do some looking in the garage, since I haven't used it in 30+ years..

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Bob don't hold yer breath.... I'm still waiting for Junk to dig a propane torch out of his garage that he promised me 3 months ago.

Mike, you should hope he does dig out the undercoating gun and send it to me, he told me he borrowed it from you!