New tools you've bought recently?

[Shran]

I bought one of the new Harbor Freight band saw stands. Mounted up my old Milwaukee portaband. Took me 3 hours to get it adjusted so it cuts square and had to build a custom bracket because the Milwaukee one that comes with the stand is terrible, in typical HF fashion. Otherwise it’s pretty cool. I think it will be really handy for cutting up unistrut at work and tubing at home.

 

[alwaysFlOoReD]

Copying a post linking a YouTube vid about tire changer mods, I bought a manual tire changer centering cone and a nylon mount/demount duck head for my manual tire changer. I need to weld together a bracket to use the ducks head.

Amazon.ca

Amazon.ca

 

[gaz]

Hello,

Went to the shooting range last week, couldn't locate my Mickey Mouse ears so I shot with just foamies. Upon arriving home I looked into a second set to keep this from being a regular event.

I found a set on The Walmart.com that, if their claims were true, is a winner. Howard Leight Leightning L3 ear muffs, claimed -30dB attenuation!! From my hearing protection training I know that adding the right size, correctly installed foamies can increase attenuation by -2dB to -4dB. So I pulled the trigger.

WoW, these are legit!!! Great with pistols, of course. They say one size fits all, I have a large head but not a HUGE knoggin. They fit me very good with nearly no wiggle room.

Cheekweld on AR, SKS Mosin and 10/22 is uneffected. These Mickey's are on par with or a little better that the style/model used by our Navy aviators.

I can still feel the concussion of the .308 throughout my body, firing 6' away from me but my ears are happy!!

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

I bought one of the new Harbor Freight band saw stands. Mounted up my old Milwaukee portaband. Took me 3 hours to get it adjusted so it cuts square and had to build a custom bracket because the Milwaukee one that comes with the stand is terrible, in typical HF fashion. Otherwise it’s pretty cool. I think it will be really handy for cutting up unistrut at work and tubing at home.

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View attachment 94741

I might just have to see about getting one of those now… and now I’m wishing I would have picked up an extra porta-band, there was an auction around here awhile back where they were selling Milwaukee ones used for $20-50 each… no matter, I’ll still stick one in there, just means I should probably try to get my garage up sooner rather than later so I don’t have to keep one at home and one at my buddy’s

 

[scotts90ranger]

I like my small HFT horizontal saw, took some tweaking to get it to cut straight but once there it's sweet... I should probably get a portaband though at some point... angle grinders work good but sometimes a saw would be better...

The last tool I got was a hook attachment for my OTC slide hammer, haven't opened it yet since I ended up getting what I needed it for apart with other methods before it arrived...

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

I like my small HFT horizontal saw, took some tweaking to get it to cut straight but once there it's sweet... I should probably get a portaband though at some point... angle grinders work good but sometimes a saw would be better...

The last tool I got was a hook attachment for my OTC slide hammer, haven't opened it yet since I ended up getting what I needed it for apart with other methods before it arrived...

I have a HFT porta-band and a Milwaukee one. Both are near identical. Both work 1,000x better than a grinder and quieter. No throwing sparks everywhere either. And the blades last about forever compared to Zip disks on a grinder.

 

[bilbo]

I have been thinking about getting one of those kits from SWAG offroad; I didn't know HF had one. Love my portabands. Prior to those I used a chopsaw and/or cutoff wheels. I think 10 percent of the energy used goes into actual cutting and the rest is converted into noise and sparks.

 

[Curious Hound]

I have been thinking about getting one of those kits from SWAG offroad; I didn't know HF had one. Love my portabands. Prior to those I used a chopsaw and/or cutoff wheels. I think 10 percent of the energy used goes into actual cutting and the rest is converted into noise and sparks.

SWAG makes some good stuff. We have their ports and stand here at work.

 

[Cliff_m]

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I have that same work stand. The red one is nice especially for full size under hood work. Mine is close to 20 years old and not as shiney. You'll like it for sure.

 

[Shran]

I have been thinking about getting one of those kits from SWAG offroad; I didn't know HF had one. Love my portabands. Prior to those I used a chopsaw and/or cutoff wheels. I think 10 percent of the energy used goes into actual cutting and the rest is converted into noise and sparks.

i have a different saw mounted on the swag table. Highly recommended.

i use band saws and a sawzall for the vast majority of my metal cutting. Abrasive chop saw is what I started with and I haven’t used it in probably 10 years. They are great for making cuts if you don’t care about accuracy… too much flex in the blade. Cutoff wheels on a grinder work fine but often I need more finesse than I can do with those.

main problem with band saws, portabands in particular is the throat is usually a lot wider than the material and the blade isn’t super tight so it’s very easy for it to wander. Getting square cuts is difficult.

 

[Uncle Gump]

I used up the last 4 1/2 cutting disc I had. Got to looking and read some reviews about metal cutting disc's.

The local farm store had these in stock and though I would try it... I also bought a few of what I'm use to working with just incase.

 

[Curious Hound]

I used up the last 4 1/2 cutting disc I had. Got to looking and read some reviews about metal cutting disc's.

The local farm store had these in stock and though I would try it... I also bought a few of what I'm use to working with just incase.

View attachment 94991

Let us know how that works and whether or not you think it’s worth the price.

 

[Uncle Gump]

Let us know how that works and whether or not you think it’s worth the price.

That is the $15 a copy question I have too.

 

[Uncle Gump]

I should add that the store had a BUNCH of cutting and grinding discs... but that Metalmax disc was the last one on the peg. Makes me think they sell them.

The big bonus will be the lack of fiber dust... and maybe more important is they don't shrink once you start using them. They will simply stop cutting and still be 4 1/2 inches.

 

[Shran]

Waste of $15. I hate them. They enlarge your cut much wider than the blade and its very difficult to make as straight cut.