HF upped my opinion today

[alloy]

I have made numerous Harbor Freight purchases, my luck has been excellent, but I do try to follow 2 simple rules

1 - buy nothing with an electrical cord
2 - buy nothing that uses batteries

I totally agree with what you say. A few years ago I bought a Jet lathe with no motor. I picked up one from HF, machined up some nice mounting brackets and Jim Dawson helped me wire it all up.

First motor had a dead short, second one vibrated so badly you could grab the lathe and move it around. When I took the second one back they wouldn't refund my money, gave me a credit. I called the district manager and in short order the store manager called and asked me to come down and get my money along with a $20 gift certificate.

I took them back, bought a used motor off a guy that was converting his to CNC and it's worked ever since.

But on the other hand, I bought a tool cart today from HF and am totally surprised at the quality and how heavily it's built. I even posted a thread about it here.

 

[jwmay]

Careful guys. If they start seeing that we like their stuff, the prices will triple.

It’s all junk! They ought to pay us to haul it out of there for them! Worst tools ever! See? Like that.

 

[Robo_Pi]

To be honest I don't know how they do it. The tire changer I bought for $39 is an extremely simple design. It would be fairly easy to build one myself. The problem is that I would easily spend more than $39 just to buy the steel to built it. Then I'd need to cut all that steel up and weld it all together and paint it. I can easily see the parts bill becoming $40 plus. There's also a nice 1" thick acme lead screw and nut on the top that screws down to hold the tire in place when you change it. I just can't see building this for under $40 in parts. Unless I'm working with free salvaged junk steel. Even then I wouldn't want to build one and sell it for $40. It wouldn't be worth my labor.

Same thing for their sawmill. It's an extremely simple design. Something a person could build from scratch with simple tools. Just the same, I'll bet you'd have $2000 plus in parts if you were buying new steel and a new motor to put on it. I don't believe in could build one for less than $2000 using new materials. Might be able to beat that price using old free steel from say an old piece of farm equipment. But if you had to buy the steel and motor new I don't see how you could obtain the parts for much less than $2000.

I don't know how they do it. But I'm glad they do. Saved me a lot of work trying to build my own from scratch. And that was on the table at the beginning. After I found the HF sawmill I thought to myself, "You'd be crazing trying to build one from scratch when you can just order this one instead". After all, I wanted to spend the summer cutting logs, not building a sawmill.

Yep, I don't know how they do it. I probably supported an industry that depends on slave labor? I hope not. Hopefully these were built with robots. They must have been to be sold at these prices. And the steel they use must be dirt cheap too.

 

[coherent]

I bought their sawmill too!!!

View attachment 289606

I've been on the fence about getting one of these sawmills myself. I wish I hadn't seen your post because it sparked my interest again and got me reading everything I could find on the portable sawmills. So, long story short I ordered a model sold by Norwood. I would have went with HF but really wanted something with a little more width capability for live edge slabs as well as basic lumber. Still awaiting shipment notification and delivery but these saws look like a lot of fun., much less the practical side. I'll post a photo on the forum once I get it up and running. Now I just gotta track down some logs! Anyone have a dead or down tree they want removed?

 

[Robo_Pi]

Oh dear! Me bad. I'm instingating other people to go out and buy a sawmill. Oh well, the damage is done now. I hope you enjoy your Norwood.

And yes, I too was considering other mills for the larger diameter capacity. But I ended up settling on the HF because my budget simply wouldn't allow me to go any bigger. The Norwood will probably be a better machine overall anyway. I do believe the HF is the rock bottom in sawmills. I think you'd be really hard-pressed to find one cheaper. But it does work.

I have 10 acres all wooded land. So I have more logs than I can cut. So sawmill makes perfect sense for me. Do you have a trailer to haul logs home on? You're best bet is to put out advertisements in your area offering to haul away storm damaged trees. Do this especially right after stormy weather. In most cases people will be glad to give you the trees for free if you come and cut them up and haul them away. If you hear on the news that high winds or a tornado was active in your area, get that ad out there. You'll be sure to get some free trees. All you need is a chainsaw, a trailer, and a way to get the logs onto the trailer. Either winch them on, or roll them on from the side if possible.

Now, if you really want to DROOL look at this home made sawmill.

 

[coherent]

Oh dear! Me bad. I'm instingating other people to go out and buy a sawmill. Oh well, the damage is done now. I hope you enjoy your Norwood.

And yes, I too was considering other mills for the larger diameter capacity. But I ended up settling on the HF because my budget simply wouldn't allow me to go any bigger. The Norwood will probably be a better machine overall anyway. I do believe the HF is the rock bottom in sawmills. I think you'd be really hard-pressed to find one cheaper. But it does work.

I have 10 acres all wooded land. So I have more logs than I can cut. So sawmill makes perfect sense for me. Do you have a trailer to haul logs home on? You're best bet is to put out advertisements in your area offering to haul away storm damaged trees. Do this especially right after stormy weather. In most cases people will be glad to give you the trees for free if you come and cut them up and haul them away. If you hear on the news that high winds or a tornado was active in your area, get that ad out there. You'll be sure to get some free trees. All you need is a chainsaw, a trailer, and a way to get the logs onto the trailer. Either winch them on, or roll them on from the side if possible.

Yes that's a big bandsaw! There is a market in my area for live edge slabs, but a saw like that can get pretty pricey (beyond my budget) and building one would be a pretty time consuming endeavor. Yes I have a flat bed trailer, 3 chainsaws and an F-250... also a compact tractor with a front end loader. It couldn't lift a 30" 14 ft log, but it's capable with smaller stuff and skidding, rolling, pushing or lifting one end of larger logs. LOL, we don't really have a tornado problem in Arizona, but the thunderstorms/winds do knock down trees here like everywhere so I'll keep your suggestions in mind. Call me weird, and it may be a guy thing or a tool thing, but the sawmills just look like fun!

 

[Robo_Pi]

Call me weird, and it may be a guy thing or a tool thing, but the sawmills just look like fun!

Keep in mind that this is actually a very large bandsaw, and can be creatively used as one. You don't need to just cut logs into lumber. You can actually use this sawmill to make fancy cuts for woodworking projects. The obvious thing you can do right off the bat is make a V-groove fixture to hold things like a 4x4 or 6x6 etc. And then cut the corners off those to make octagon columns. Plus you can use the left over triangular cut-offs to strengthen inside corners of projects.

You can also take a short log, stand it up vertically, and cut "cookies" off it that have perfectly flat and parallel faces. Tilt the log and you can cut nice oblong disks to make wall plaques.

I use it as a bandsaw for making outdoor lawn funiture. Just thinking of it as a huge bandsaw instead of a sawmill opens up all kinds of creative ideas.

 

[7milesup]

I own one of their Pro series tool chests. It is one of the best buys out there. Roller bearing drawer slides and heavy gauge metal construction. Walking through a local store the other day I stopped in the tool section and played with one of their Dewalt tool chests. Total joke for the amount of money. If you want something better than a HF tool chest, get a Milwaukee one. They are like the king of value, especially when on sale.

 

[Toolmaker51]

<snipped>
Important Disclaimer:
Everything I've said about the HF mill makes sense. . .
<snipped>

So whether or not it's worth it to someone can indeed depend on what they plan on using it for. If you buy a HF sawmill and think you are going to tow it around on a trailer as a full-time sawmill business, you may very well be disappointed. So intended use is indeed a consideration. Although it could certainly be used for the purpose in a pinch. But let's face it, you're going to need to be more mindful of it as it's not going to be as rugged and heavy-duty as a Woodmizer.

I'd go for the Woodmizer if I was starting a sawmill business. Which is what my cousin does. He makes his living cutting lumber on location with his Woodmizer. My HF sawmill sits in my backyard hoping that I'll need to cut up a log once in a while just so it can be used and not be so lonely.

But think of what a waste it would have been for me to have bought a Woodemizer just to let sit in my backyard most of the time!

But yeah, I don't think you can find a less expensive sawmill than the HF sawmill. If you buy one, take great care in setting it up originally. If you take the time to get it on a solid foundation that is true and level, it will serve you well. It may even shift on you due to sinking of your foundation. So you need to keep an eye out for that. I always shim it up in the spring at various places to ensure that it's perfectly flat and level. That's just a matter of sliding a few shims under the tracks where it may have shifted over the winter, If you treat it like a precision machine it will act like one.

In bold, as if highlighting is an important statement. Applies to most any mechanized equipment, be it a wood mill, metal lathe, surface grinder, miter saw or a DeVlieg JigMil. I literally had employer ridicule my efforts to level a simple knee mill. "Just level the parts"! I guess geometry wasn't his topic or flair.
We were making long machine frame members, symmetrical in all 3 planes. Then I ordered material for outboard supports, which they bought instead.
The chain drive, feed belt and set-up tuning issues disappeared.
Not really; I knew where they went!