How bad (or good) are Harbor Freight Storehouse hardware assortments? What's a good way to build up a good cache of hardware for problem solving, emergencies, etc without spending too much money?
>>2980063Estate sales. Get American made stuff. Harbor Freight is for the kind of people that are turning this country to shit. Often times the hardware bins are unsold at the end of a sale cause everyone that goes to estate sales has already bought a cache or two. You can get them super cheap.
>>2980063Buy them as you need them. When you do things by design, commonize on a few sizes and styles and buy in bulk. Maybe you use M4 hex head, 10mm, everywhere you can, or whatever, so buy a box.>>2980116>Estate salesI guess that's one way of saying "that ship has sailed"
>>2980063They're not bad to get a few things to stock up on. The threaded clips for metal screws can be handy as fuck fixing dashes and other plastic interior type stuff. The cotter key assortments and keystock assortments are good to have on hand. O rings, etc you really can't go wrong. Hitch pins, lynch pins, pto pins are great to have on hand. Fuses are ok, plastic quality is a bit shitty, but they'll work. Always grab a pocketful at the junkyard every time you go to stock up on quality OEM fuses. The grease zerks, roll pins, woodruff keys, springs, snap-rings, body shims, copper washers, etc are good for random ass projects if you work on that kind of stuff. One I will say to avoid is those god damn molly bolt style wall anchors. Those are absolute dogshit and will strip out before spreading behind the wall-board every time. Pic rel.
>>2980063you should buy an organizer and then whenever you need bolts just buy the lb box and put the extras in your bins. like just dont buy shit just to have it
>>2980213>like just dont buy shit just to have ityou have now blasphemed my foundational existence and i am forced to declare forever holywar against your entire lineage
>>2980213>you should buy an organizer and then whenever you need bolts just buy the lb box and put the extras in your bins. like just dont buy shit just to have itIf you buy it after you need it then it's already too late... My goal is to never have to make a parts run.
>>2980213>>2980219Right like, what's so hard to understand about this? It's not always noon on a weekday when you need a part.
>>2980063That screw kit, specifically, is possibly the worst thing I've ever bought from Harbor Freight. They flat-out won't penetrate anything thicker than aluminum foil. The heads are formed wrong, so the driver wobbles and slips no matter what you do. They tend to strip when being driven into hard wood. My only solace is that the empty box is at least useful.Some of the assortments are good (I've gotten decent use out of the snap ring and clevis pin sets), but not that one.>>2980219The OP specified "without spending too much money", which implies buying in bulk. Per-unit cost on small fasteners in small quantities is ridiculous, but buying 100pc+ of every size of screw you think you MIGHT use is going to cost an amount that most would consider "too much money". Never even mind different materials and head styles.Figure out what you actually use regularly, buy a bunch of those. Buy a bulk bag of everything you find yourself in need of after that. It's been a very long time since I didn't have some usable piece of hardware on hand by doing this. Most of the times I'm caught lacking, it's either some specialty thing or odd (usually large) size that I could never justify buying and storing an entire box/bag of.
>>2980228Shit always breaks when nothing is open. When did my water pressure tank fuck off? Middle of the week in summer? No, on Christmas Eve.Always keep an oh shit kit around with a variety of fixes, even if they are temporary.
>>2980063other than the first comment which mentioned estate sales you can skip the middleman and just get an assortment from aliexpress for a quarter of what they charge at harbor freight for the same chinesium
>>2980238>>>2980219 (You)>The OP specified "without spending too much money", which implies buying in bulk. Per-unit cost on small fasteners in small quantities is ridiculous, but buying 100pc+ of every size of screw you think you MIGHT use is going to cost an amount that most would consider "too much money". Never even mind different materials and head styles.All this stuff could be had for less than $300. That is absolute chump change. Some things might not be useful for everyone. Does OP need internal and external snap rings? Fuck if I know, but I need them. Does he need standard and metric grease zerks? No fucking clue. Would I buy the wire nuts from Harbor Freight? Probably not, because I can get a bulk pack from Homo-depot in the few sizes that are actually useful to me. Would I trust HF worm gear hose clamps? Probably not, and I already have an entire assload of them in every size imaginable to mankind. Use your head OP and buy what you actually need to stock up on to repair the kinds of things you work on. Check the stuff out in the store and fingerfuck it some to see if it is good enough quality for you to want to use.
