Bah Humbug

[pmanton]

I purchased a Harbor Freight Pneumatic rivet gun to ease the job of setting all the pop rivets in my wings. During testing I discovered it emits a spray of oil every time the trigger is pulled.

Of course this happened after I destroyed the packing materials it came in.

Paul
Salome, AZ

[MikeB]

As my younger brother would say when any piece of equipment fails "What do you expect? It's only human". I have a bit of a problem with my Harbor Frieght remote (bore scope type) camera as it only shows the picture now and then and basically when I don't need it so now I have a fairly expensive 'bend a light'. But what should I expect..........

Mike

[Jerry Jackson]

Mine did the same thing. I was surprised because I had used a borrowed one a few years ago and it worked great and was free of oil mist.

Jerry in San Antonio

[clipperfixer]

As far as I am concerned they are one time use tools. I buy them if I need it for one use because after that they are generally done. if you need a good rivet gun I would suggest going to ebay and buying an old Cleco brand gun. You might pay a few bucks more, and it might not be pretty, but they work well and last forever.

[Richard Murray]

Paul
I too had the oil spray after following the tools instruction sheet. Empty the oil the instructions told you to add and pull a couple dozen rivets and the spray will leave. Finished my wings and the gun still works fine

[Dennis]

The bottom canister of my pneumatic rivet gun literally blew-up in my hand. Oil went everywhere but no injury or damage to my work surface.

Dennis

[pmanton]

Paul
I too had the oil spray after following the tools instruction sheet. Empty the oil the instructions told you to add and pull a couple dozen rivets and the spray will leave. Finished my wings and the gun still works fine

Good tip Thanks

[Champ Dreamer]

A typical story about harbor fright tools. I am in the sheet metal business, years ago we had a project that required thousands of pop rivets. Our pneumatic gun quit right when we started. Out of desperation, I ran to HF and bought two, assuming the first one would crap out. It didn't, and to my amazement worked for a couple more years. We probably ran 100k rivets with it. When it finally did quit, I got the second one out of the box and put it in service. In broke three days later. Go figure!

Brian Walker
7 AC/DC flyin' everyday!

[Aerco]

I have put about 4000 rivets through my $40 Harbor Freight riveter and it still works great.

The days when you get what you pay for as far as tools go are pretty much in the past. I had Ryobi, Dewalt, Makita etc tools in the past and sometimes the cheap stuff outlasts them. I buy cheap tools when I need to get a job done because I prefer to spend my money on flying and airplane parts, not because I want to impress my friends with my tool collection.

[bob turner]

Takes some luck, and maybe some knowledge. I have four of their small cast iron drill presses - one in each hangar and two in the model train shop. I have drilled tens of thousands of holes, and have not found any problems at all. Fifty bucks each, and very well spent.

On the other hand, bought a belt sander, and it doesn't have any power at all - and the cheap spray gun was simply junk. And do not buy that beautiful but flimsy maple workbench!

[bob turner]

That's the drill press on the left, and the useless workbench under the not-so-useless South Bend.