Harbor Freight trailer? 
^ 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 cheapā¦ copper wouldnāt 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 bearingsā¦ :~
This vac would be a good replacement for the old burnt out craftsman vac of equivalent capacity that we found in someoneās garbage.
Turns out the old vac uses the same type of spring.
These are whatās 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 donāt know what that guy-at-the-BLF-deal-alerts-threadās problem was but these screwdrivers are just fine. Really good for free!
Home Cheapo
I donāt 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 
Well I donāt, the other day I had to rent an electric jack hammer.
Looks like a prety skookum vac for the price!!!
The Rigid vacs Iāve used were really good. My only beef is the filters which are costly- give them a āTexas Tune-upā 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 āContractor Beta-testersā for new products and concept tools when I worked closer to their plant. Great plumbing tools, Iām not really impressed with most of the rest.
Phil
Itās 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 āRidgidā and the one on the right is a āRyobiā
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 donāt 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 8ā 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.
Nahā¦ That was a tyspotā¦
Yep, you can finish with one of those, but I need to stress the āstonemasonā concept of forming the steel into the pocket you needā¦ 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 thatās how I got hooked up with the ābetaā stuff. Iām 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 theyāve been closed down for years. Iām a DeWalt fan, maybe not the very best tools but tough as nails and uber-reliable. Iām 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); itās the angled operations that get rough. Itās as much the voids in the welds and the hard spots in the metal as anything else. Itās the toughest drilling job Iāve ever run into and Iāve drilled about everything. Iām thinking about getting a welder from Santa this year so I wonāt have to go through this again 
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.
zomg! 
Hopefully theyāll still be around this weekend!
Hey look; in the bottom right corner it says āSide 2 - Use for price changeā
Interesting
Also notice that behind the sticker there is an empty space with four corners.
So one side of the board has a price and the other side has a blank space for a custom price.
This store had a brand new display of the old Defiant 5C. CREE XM-L and 625 Lumen.
The display lists them for $24.98, but they scan for $9.88
They also had an almost full display of the $3.00 drill bits. Lower layer is full, untouched, and the top layer is only missing 6 units.
Those drill bits are gold!
I got 3 drill bit sets, and while I was getting them for the price, I decided to get a driver bit set as well.
These are awesome! Even for the full price of $4.88, they are still a lot better than anywhere else. I searched around and while I found sets that were fairly reasonable, the HDX set was always the best deal. Now even better! Although they break rather easily, they drill very well!
These sets seem to be well thought-out. They were thinking and they put in multiples of the smaller sizes.
Also the cases are really good to, and they look really nice! They have a rubber backing so they donāt slide around.
After you use all the drill bits, you can hack the case and reuse it for other things. :bigsmile:
So for the price of one Ryobi set (which was also a good deal) on sale (as it always seems to be) I got three HDX drill bit sets. And for the price of a Ryobi set at retail price, I got four sets!