harbor freight shrinker/stretcher.....

I am looking to purchase these tools this week,i am interested in hearing comments from anyone on the site that has used these tools(shrinker/stretcher).

 

I got the one for $99. I made this:



It actually works pretty good. I just am not sure how long the jaws will last.

 

i have one, i bought the stand as well, seems to be just dandy.

 

i got one at my shop.. it works nice but i too am unsure of how long the jaws will last and havent seen any sold seperate from the machine at my local store. doesnt seem like something that should be used everyday

 

We have one, built our own stand...........well worth the money.

 

Mine works just fine and dandy. If the jaws wear out, do you really want to replace them with the HF variety? New jaws are around $85 from Dagger Tools or Kent White.

I haven't seen any issues with the jaws in mine yet, besides the typical Lancaster-style jaw issues (loading up with shavings, rough finish left on the sheetmetal, etc.)

Tim D.

 

i have bought jaws separately, and on another site a guy posted how he made his own jaws useing pieces of flat files.

 

Thanks for the quick responces,i knew i could count on the HAMB!!!!

 

Not Harbor Freight but I have both in my aircraft shop. Doing restorations, they get a LOT of use. A great addition for any fabrication efforts. Recommendation......Practice, practice and practice...on scraps! Take small "bites", gently. Better to go slow than try to hump it. Have fun!!

 

Harbor freight is cool if you're in a pinch or don't mind supporting offshore economies. There is a reason why good tools are expensive, and I have learned the hard way that quality costs money...(and you also are paying for customer service)...something I wish more people would understand. I think there is something fundamentally wrong with spending $100 on something, and having the mind-set of "It actually works pretty good". We've become used to mediocrity.

That said, someday my shrinker/stretcher will cost $400+ bucks and not come from Harbor Freight...and I will have the piece of mind it will work right for YEARS, and possibly be something someone down the line will cherish. But I have to save for it...something to think about.

 

I have the Eastwood shrinker-strecher and it's one of those tools you gotta have to sheet metal work,,,

It is a good idea to clean jaws after ya finish using the tool,,,small bits of metal can damage the jaws.

As with any tool,,, import or not,,,they can break.

I managed to break a Eastwood strecher,,,the housing broke after 2 years of weekend warrier use,,,Eastwood made it good! HRP

 

I just got the set for Christmas from my kids. I made the area around the back window for a 27 ford. I would not have attempted it without the pair. Seems to work really well. I guess time will tell if it's going to hold up. I like the suggestion of cleaning it up after every use. I guess you can blow out the metal particals with air. I really like mine.

 

Wow, I love your stand and pedal setup. I believe I will shamelessly steal that idea and build it too!

 

The best way to clean the jaws is to disassemble them from the frame and take a pick and get all of the debris out of the serrations. Lightly oil and reassemble. If you do that after every use the jaws willl last a long time and the tools are ready each time you use it.
Frank

 

Hey David,

The chinese ones don't hold up like the real-deal "Lancaster" ones. With heavy use, the jaws go to pot. For once or twice a year use, the commie ones "may" work for you. For ones that will work for years to come buy the Lancaster. Clean and oil as necessary, but not too much on the ramp areas of the jaws.
I've jus' gotten by with the shrinker, body & stretcher jaws as I can stretch metal much easier than I can shrink it.
Some of what these shrinker/stretchers can do, can be done with a hammer form, without all the tool marks.

Did you sell the '51 Merc?

Swankey Devils C.C.
"Meanwhile, back aboard The Tainted Pork"

 

Most of what these things do can be done with a hammer, not even the trouble of making up a hammerform.

Even the "real-deal" Lancaster's can have issues with the jaws. Sometimes they even break. I figure if the HF jaws break, I already got the Dagger jaws I had in my homemade body that'll swap right in. Heck, I got my homemade dies somewhere too - they work alright.

Ah, but, the "real-deal" Lancasters are one of those "It actually works pretty good" tools too. Why do I say that? They are intended to be a low-budget replacement for the REAL shrinkers: Erco, Eckold, Marchant and such. $400? $4000 won't buy you a used one of those!

Now Neil Dunder (dba gogitzit.com) makes a nice Marchant style machine that I think might be in the affordable range.

The ante goes up and up, depends on what ya wanna spend........or how long ya wanna save as opposed to how soon you wanna work.

Tim D.<!-- / message --><!-- sig -->

 

I bought a cheap chinese one and the jaws broke first use!!! I had to mill my own replacement jaws but i didn't have any tool steel lying around so i used the strongest steel i had to make the jaws with and when ever i use it now i'm real gentle. Spend the money once and buy a good one.

 

Any replacement parts can only be had at the depot out in Oxnard-I think thats where I saw the big warehouse--it's either there or Camarillo, CA

 

Buy American-better tools, and keeps America working.

 

Keeps America working....I was hoping that would come up.

Here's one to ponder........Eastwood, Porto, etc, the "makers" of the US made shrinkers don't employ anyone in my hometown.......but Harbor Freight does. I figure the $600 I spent in the HF store this year helped put food on the table of one of their employees right here in town........helps me sleep a little better during the day.

Tim D.

 

Here's one to ponder, traditional hotrods were never built with chinamen crap. Ever. Seems like a website filled with guys following tradition to the point of cuteness would get that pretty quick. Then again it keeps coming up like a bad penny. Maybe when the real jobs are gone we'll start getting it. It's nice that Harbor Freight helps to create wealth in your neighborhood, to bad it's not really creating wealth ,like traditional manufacturing does.

 

I'm with you Hugh, plus the quality of China shit sucks, I've seen them break. You aren't saving money if you throw it in the trash can.

 

Well, lets think about a couple of points: "traditional" hot rods weren't built with mig welders or a lot of other nifty power tools we have in the home shop now either.
Traditional build with traditional tools? Come on.

As for buying stuff made in China? Well... I'm not fond of it. But here are a couple of hard, cold facts that I have to deal with. I need to put food on my family's table, and take care of all my family's other needs. That means if I want something, I have to weigh the costs of what I can afford. American manufacturing has priced itself out of competition. Either they aren't interested in making small runs of things (small is a comparative term--1,000 quarter panels for a '69 Charger versus 100,000 fenders for a new Ford), and they can't make consumer-grade goods anywhere near the price most of us can afford. Labor prices are a huge part of that. I'm sorry, but if Han Chen can come out of the rice paddy and feed the CNC machine that makes bead roller dies, or picks up a mig gun and welds together the big red sheetmetal brake, I think we've proven that it's not a highly skilled job that demands $25-$45 an hour.
Corporate taxes are another issue. Why the hell do corporations pay tax? High taxes cut into their profits (what they can't pass on directly to the consumer). A business exists to make money, period. Tax the snot out of them, they go elsewhere.

I agree with what someone else said--Buying Japanese cars built in Ohio may be sending the profits back to Japan, but it's keeping Americans working. Buying tools from Harbor Freight keeps truck drivers, warehouse workers and store clerks working. And it puts a hobby-grade tool in my garage that I couldn't otherwise afford.

-Brad

 

I agree with the 'Dont buy Chinese crap' way of thinking
BUT
we have more and better tools in our garage at home than ANY business had in the 50s and 60s.
Carbide tools were not available til the 70s,
welding aluminum was nearly impossible in the 50s
ANY kind of welding at home was mostly non-existant

We have better tools and less expensive than EVER

I remember my grandfather telling me that if I wanted a hole in a piece of metal, I should find a piece of metal with a hole already in it and "weld" (meaning heat both pieces in the forge and force them to fuse by using a big hammer) the two pieces together

Nobody in their right mind would want to be restricted to 'traditional' tools

 

Lucky I get to pick and choose. We have a very well equipped shop with stuff from many places. Doesn't mean I have to roll over and buy into chinamen crap. The traditional police are pretty strict here, I'd like to think they would also be smart enough to realize which side of their bread is buttered. But maybe not. At least I won't be rationalizing my job away.

 

This is the bottom line, for me at least. I buy used American tools before china, and am always satisfied. Evertime I break the rule and buy China, I am disappointed. I have the Eastwood shrinker, says Made in the USA in big letters, and works great.

 

It's a global economy nowdays; even a good US made tool is almost sure to have screws, pins, switches, steel, or something on it that has been imported. I don't want anyone to lose their jobs but it's inevitable as we grow as a technologically advanced society that some jobs will change. A milkman used to be a good paying job. There was a guy in town who had a small auto shop and did nothing but rebuild carburators. He made a great living until technology took the carb out of regular production cars. My grandpa, who was a lifelong labor union member, gave me the best advice: "Educate yourself in several fields to make sure you always have a back up plan. There will be a time when someone comes along and builds a machine to do your job, or does your job at a fraction of the previous cost. Make sure you keep a good selection of skills to make yourself valuable and keep you working." American ingenuity will continue to lead the world, even if some aspects of it are changing.

 

I'm always butting heads with one of my buddies who's an engineer and can only do things one way, and that's total overkill. Harbor Freight is my favorite catalog and I'm always loading up on crap (like the tool tents at Carlisle) He's always giving me the "You should be buying Snap On or Mac" routine. My take on it....if you're like me and use the stuff maybe once or twice a month, go for it. If you use the stuff constantly as a pro, and it's a case of being like a surgeon with his favorite scalpel and the tool being an extension of your hand, avoid Harbor Freight like the plague. My biggest reason for going HF....99% of the time the tool will get lost or stolen befire it even has time to break!

 

I agree with Brad54 more and more each day. I will try and buy hecho en US as much as possible but when moneys tight and I need a tool, I'll buy whatever I can afford.

Also about american stuff, well shoot my Daily driver avalanche is sitting outside with a broken tailgate latch and a speedometer that says its going 60mph right now, (its parked) and when I drive most of the time it says its doing 110 mph, ALL MESSED UP. Chevy couldnt get it right when they made it and won't pay the $450 to fix it now because Im over my 90,000 miles that they extended the warranty to for that part. Thanks chevy.

Sorry, just mad when i got the quote for the part $350 plus $100 labor. BLAH. and who pays $100/hr for labor. WTF, we are killing ourselves with the high labor costs.

 

That's why new cars suck, and I drive 20+ year old cars every day. It's probably half Chinese.