Harbor Freight Forstner Bit Set Review

[Music] caddis maximus here this time with a quick review of the harbor for a 16-piece Forstner bit set Forstner bits are used for making very precise holes in wood that's why they oftentimes come in these types of sets with lots of increments usually you won't see increments like this unless it is twist drills they are used for all sorts of functions such as counterbore where you want to drill hole and then make another larger partial hole at the top and then maybe put a bolt in and put a piece of dowel over the top this is one operation but anytime you really want really nice precise holes and that's the whole purpose of these types of bits now these are like 37 bucks or something still you can use a coupon get some around 30 bucks which is an unbelievable deal these sets of like professional brands such as like this Freud here will be a couple hundred dollars at least and they make production grade versions of these actually have carbide tips and those can be five hundred dollars for a similar set so a lot of people complain about some of the fit and finish of these Harbor freights but they are beyond they are one of like the last few items of Harbor Freight selling that really are just a huge price difference so cheaply made but it's pretty unbelievable that for around thirty dollars delivered from China you can get sixteen Forstner bits that will generally work they are just a plain hard carbon steel so they are hardened but they are not any kind of grade of high speed steel they're not a tool steel so this will last you know probably a quarter to a third of the time as a or them the amount of use as one of these Freud bits to do a side by side they kind of do something interesting here where they do saw two things which is a lot more similar to what is known as self-feed bits which are in many ways similar to a Forstner but the Forstner bits are made for a precise holes they also make flat bottom holes they have two sweeps or two cutters on them and a very conservative point just to help them stay centered many times you'll use these bits in a drill press they all have ground 5/16 stems or spindles and so they're designed to really be used with collets but of course you can use them with hand power tools and that's what i use them for is really not for a precise hole drilling precisely sized but more for counter bore situations another thing i should notice we're sterner bits are also designed to run slow many people burn them up running them way too fast they really even for small ones all these Harbor Freight surprisingly enough I don't know if we can see it here but actually have recommended rpms and on this one and three-quarter inch it's 450 rpm so really these bits do need to run in low gear one of the most common issues is there actually are designed to have a really really fine sharp edge and versus a self-feed bit even on these Harbor Freight so these side teeth here are also they're not perfectly sharp but they are very very sharp much sharper than on self-feed bit which is this designed for plowing a big hole through what on the Diablo or this isn't this a de Freud you can see that they have this kind of a similar idea but that they do this weird kind of step grinding but it maintains more of a full edge we can also see that if we can get just a right angle you can see that they use a very fine grit grinding wheel versus a very coarse grit here you can just see the lines right along here and if we get this in the right light you can just see all these lines so they ground them more quickly using a coarser wheel which lasts longer and gets the job done quicker so those are a lot of aspects low grade steel not the best grinds and you're getting a really good bit set or a really reasonable bit set for the price now it's easier to grind the larger bit so we can see when we get to the smaller bits that the grinding doesn't go all the way to the center it's getting kind of showery on the cutting edge of the smaller one whatever this is this is a 3/8 or some five-eighths so on the small ones that they get particularly bad but they still generally work and that's why I was happy to pick up this because oh I should mention that they had hardly any oil and they're starting to rust and so you do want to keep these oil so if we're forcing her bit set that really isn't going to last very long basically for a cost of one of these large for a professional-grade version of one of these larger bits you get a whole set and if you find yourself always using the one and a half inch Forstner bit then when it you burn up your Harbor Freight one then you replace it with either a nice you know professional-grade one or even a carbide tip one that really will last a long time anyway let me drill a couple of holes since I have a one and three-quarter inch Freud and we'll see how it does actually just dug up one of these half inch Freud's that I forgot I had and so here's a difference between a Freud on the right and the Harbor Freight on the left it's just a huge difference in manufacturing quality and the precision of grinding just it's really pretty surprising to tell you the truth and then the Freud uses a much higher grade steel I don't know if they're high speed steel in the Freud's but they last way longer than the Harbor Freight but in this case it's what it's you know exactly why I was expected you know a lot of people use of where they're just these horrible burrs and some of these sins wouldn't cut because all the cutting edges where they had miss ground them to the point to where it was actually dull and in this particular set they've actually been pretty decent I guess enough people returned enough set for Arbor Freight to say hey guy is he gonna at least sharpen them well enough for them to cut okay here's my famous block of Douglas fir if you have Tripta phobia you should probably look away now that's the fear of holes and this block when I originally got it was unholy but I've exercised its in through the judicious use of power tools one of the parts of the accuracy of for service and I forgot to mention that I do have a subscriber who does use these as comment about them is this grinding they are very true Forstner bits are supposed to run very very straight essentially like an N mill in a milling machine or a good drill bit so if you ever have a fortunate that wobbles around you really not it can ruin the cuts they're all so good when you know you have a good fortune like a Freud is if you think that maybe you have a belt bent drill chuck a Forstner bit is something that you know is gonna be really straight because they grind it extremely straight and chuck that up and see if the Forstner bit wobbles around let's start off with the Harbor Freight and indeed I am running this at 450 rpm out of this brushless cordless drill they don't sell feed so if you're using these by hand you do need to apply pressure and you need to be aware of that and then they grab they're really not meant to be run by hand unless you you know you need to or you have experience doing it [Music] there we go let me do the Freud actually let me run this first hole just a little deeper [Music] one of the tips by hand is when you people run a hole saws or not so much selphie bit but particularly hole saws bits that you have to press down on you get this habit align the rock it around in order to get the cut more quickly if you're using a Forstner bit by hand you have to resist that you just have to deal with trying to press down absolutely straight and just use raw force to get it the cut that's the only way you're going to get any semblance of a accurate hole with a Forstner bit by hand now with the Freud Austrian made bit same size one and three-quarter inch [Music] there is a much better grind on that Freud I it was this good to see I was pressing down on that Harbor Freight with quite a bit of force and this Freud did it was supposed to cut really nicely and I shouldn't have had to use so much force that means that the angles the geometry and the Harbor Freight are particularly bad alright here we are there there's a tiny bit of the cap there anyway so what we have is we have our two holes one with the Harbor Freight and one with the Freud just to take a quick look here's what some of the chips from the Freud they were actually nice and thick real consistent you know and you could tell by the way they were cutting really pretty nice bit the chips from the Harbor Freight were real wispy because it was just not taking a very aggressive cotton I had to press pretty hard you can tell it is still cutting these it's making curled bits but they're just all real thin interestingly enough since the Harbor Freight wasn't cutting as well the board of the whole and I don't know if you can if I can get this on camera we can zoom in as much as possible but it's really smooth I mean if we compare to any of these other holes I've been making with augers and various other bits you can see the purpose of the Forstner it makes a very nice hole and this Harbor Freight surprisingly enough the walls are very good that geometry is terrible for drilling and makes it heat up real fast but it sure does make a nice wall the bottom is okay I think it's pretty decent now here's the Freud and the Freud did pretty well right here where as cross-cutting it did get a little rough but there is a bit of a difference in grain so I will write it off this area here is just and down here is absolutely excellent the finish at the bottom of the hole is pretty good it got a little interesting on this side but it could be the grain but it really feels pretty smooth on the Harbor Freight it is a little rougher definitely is a bit rougher on the bottom of the hole so kind of a lesson you do get what you pay for the Diablo does cut more properly has much better geometry but you're gonna pay a whole heck of a lot more than these Harbor Freight so I think these Harbor Freight SAR great the issue also is is buying these Harbor Freight sand having a local tool shop resharpen them it depends on how much that cost but they are a low grade of steel and so you'll often times if you're using these be pulling them out or checking them to make sure they're they're not getting too hot because as soon as you remove get them too hot it'll ruin the temper on these Harbor Freight sand then they'll just they'll die in an instant after that that's one of the deals with higher grade Steel's is that they can take more heat and maintain their hardness anyway I really appreciate everybody watching and subscribing until next time caddis maximus out [Music]

Channel: Catus Maximus

Views: 67,831

Rating: 4.8677354 out of 5

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Id: GPJd61gMtUA

Length: 11min 48sec (708 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 15 2019