Home Depot Deal Alerts & Discussion Thread

Good luck finding good lumber. The last time I tried was 4x4s for a railing. The whole pile was wet and the ‘good’ ones I picked cracked within six months.

i can’t believe i never thought of that before

how unimaginative :bigsmile:

Once and awhile my local HD will have a “special buy” on certain types of lumber.
For instance in the past year they had a number of 1” by 5” by 4 foot long pine boards for 50 cents each. I was able to select out 30 pieces that were in effect #1 pine. The ones that weren’t were nice too.
They once had some pieces of oak, 1/2” thick for a very low price. I actually had to force myself not to pick up some and the next day it was gone. I kicked myself on that one.
In my mind, generally the lumber at Lowes is of better quality. Recently I needed a 4 by 8 foot sheet of pressure treated plywood for the bed of a trailer. The stuff at HD looked just awful, already falling apart and VERY unattractive. The stuff at Lowes was of MUCH better quality. Then I remembered that a couple of years ago, I noticed the same difference.

And usually the lumber at the few independent lumber yards left is better than either. And they have types of lumber you just can’t get at HD.

I see, I recently saw a video in which a few prices were shown. I was rather amazed, crap quality lumber here is expensive, and I don’t even think you can get the good/reasonable quality stuff. Thanks for the info guys!!!

Harbor Freight trailer? :smiley:



^ This is a nice design. The motor is completely separated from the path of the air.




^Metal propellor. Notice the flap of plastic from manufacturing. I think that may have been rubbing the propellor.







^This seems like a nice design. The brushes sit in cartridges or something like that that you can unclip and slide out to change the brush inside. The brushes are pushed by an interesting spring; it consists of a thin springy metal that is coiled on both sides.


^The spring slides right in there making it easy to put back together. Just make sure to put the spring in the right orientation.


I found out why this wet vac is so cheap. The motor uses aluminum wire!!

(well that is probably not the entire reason why it is so cheap… copper wouldn’t make such a huge difference)

I think the stator uses copper wire though.

Overall I think this is a well designed vacuum cleaner and it is very serviceable. Except for the bearings… :~


This vac would be a good replacement for the old burnt out craftsman vac of equivalent capacity that we found in someone’s garbage.
Turns out the old vac uses the same type of spring.

These are what’s left of the brushes.

Stator and electromagnet do not look happy.

For taking the wet vac apart I used the Harbor Freight screwdrivers I got for free. They work well! I had no problems. I don’t know what that guy-at-the-BLF-deal-alerts-thread’s problem was but these screwdrivers are just fine. Really good for free!

Home Cheapo

I don’t think Home Depot sells enough cheap stuff to be called a cheapo store. Many/most of their stuff is high quality and quite pricy. I consider Harbor Freight, Dollar Tree, and parts of Walmart to be considered cheapo stores. They sell low quality stuff for low prices.

That Ridgid wet dry vac is probably made by Emerson Electric. Emerson Electric owns Ridgid.
I think of all the Ridgid tools now available only the plumbing tools are actually made by Ridgid, all other tools are made by someone else. The original Ridgid branded plumbing tools are of excellent quality, everything else not so much.

I have one of those vacuums, sometimes I think I have one of every tool there is :slight_smile:
Well I don’t, the other day I had to rent an electric jack hammer.

Looks like a prety skookum vac for the price!!!

The Rigid vacs I’ve used were really good. My only beef is the filters which are costly- give them a “Texas Tune-up” with an air hose. All that most shop-vacs need to run forever is to oil the motor bearings occasionally- a drop of 30wt works fine.

Rigid power tools are made about 40 miles south of here (at least some of them) by Rigid. I was one of their “Contractor Beta-testers” for new products and concept tools when I worked closer to their plant. Great plumbing tools, I’m not really impressed with most of the rest.

Phil

It’s complicated. Take a look at these two 24V Li Ion batteries. Except for the color, they look pretty much the same. In fact functionally they are the same.

The orange one on the left is a “Ridgid” and the one on the right is a “Ryobi”

Now compare the 24V Ryobi with an 18V Ridgid.


And how about this, a Homelite hedge trimmer that takes 18V Ryobi batteries. The truth is, for battery operated hand tools, Milwaukee, Ryobi, Ridgid, AEG, Homelite, Hoover US, Dirt Devil and VAX are all made by the same company for those brands. That company is Techtronic Industries Company Limited


Phil, those Ridgid power tools you spoke of as being made near you, were they other than battery operated?

Now an even more extreme example is Who makes Craftsman Hand Tools?

I have 2 trailers. Yes one is a Harbor Freight kind of quality. I got it used, I don’t know where it came from. It is open on each end so that I can throw twigs and limbs that fall off the trees around our property. The sides are 4x8 sheets of pressure treated and the deck is also a 4x8.
That pile of wood is actually a lot larger than it looks in this picture. This trailer never leaves the property.

This trailer is a small landscapers trailer with a loading ramp. The deck on this one is made up of 5/4 pressure treated 8” wide boards, 8 foot long. I recently used it out in Ohio to haul debris from a roof tear off.

Now, a couple of deals in the lumber section of Home Depot


Here is a good deal on a 15 piece Milwaukee Hole Saw Kit.

And this is an 18V Ryobi charger that plugs into a cigarette lighter port. About a year ago I found one of these for $20 open box. Really good to have if always on the go.

Nah… That was a tyspot… :slight_smile:

Yep, you can finish with one of those, but I need to stress the “stonemason” concept of forming the steel into the pocket you need… Blacksmith time, but cold. I think the little SchnappenPopper would take too long.

Dchomak, they were battery and air operated tools. The plant is just outside of Anderson, SC in the Homeland Park community. The Mom of one of the guys I was working with was employed there and that’s how I got hooked up with the ‘beta’ stuff. I’m not sure what the name of the company is, it might be Eastland for all I know. Ryobi used to have a corded tool plant 14 mi south of here outside of Easley SC but they’ve been closed down for years. I’m a DeWalt fan, maybe not the very best tools but tough as nails and uber-reliable. I’m too poor for Festool stuff!

And Dimbo, I used a 3-step process with the cast iron; a tiny perpendicular starter hole, and angled one somewhat bigger, then the final diameter. The initial hole was easy (which starts things like a center-punch); it’s the angled operations that get rough. It’s as much the voids in the welds and the hard spots in the metal as anything else. It’s the toughest drilling job I’ve ever run into and I’ve drilled about everything. I’m thinking about getting a welder from Santa this year so I won’t have to go through this again :santa:

Phil

The switch of the RIDGID wet vac feels cheap and lightweight and does not have a very good switching feel; I suppose this would be one of the first things to go bad. Good thing it is easy to replace.
Ironically the terminals are copper plated.

The Husky flashlight 3C & 3AAA set that was $19.99 for Black Friday was reduced to $15. The 3C has the tailcap spring already bypassed. Very rugged construction and pretty sweet hosts @ $7.50 each.