Okay, okay I will finally publish my experience with my Harbor Freight hydraulic crimp tool.


I can sum it up in two words, VERY POOR..... Read on if you want the why behind my review.... (wink)


Please let's not misconstrue my review above. It is NOT to say the Chinese can't do things right, they certainly can, and they do every day, but when you send stuff out to the lowest, bottom feeder bidders, you often get what you pay for, as is the case here.


This tool was $59.99 and worth about what the corrugated box cost to ship it in. Go figure..


Lets get something out in the open, I LOVE Harbor Freight Tools, for CERTAIN things. I am not dissing all their products in any way... I recently bought boxes of nitrile gloves for a 1/3 of what I can buy them for at my local hardware store, and they were the same exact brand. I like their wrench sets because I lose lots of wrenches and consider them disposable. HFT is good for MANY things and they truly serve a purpose. You can't take that away from them. This tool however is not one of their better products. Why?


#1 The "AWG" dies are apparently from some mythical made up Chinese back room wiring standard I've never heard of...?. They are NOT AWG sized dies. I repeat, they are NOT AWG sized dies, despite being labeled as such! They are so bad, and so mislabeled, I suspect some poor soul in a dirty dark room, with no internet connection, actually made it up after complaints from US customers that the dies were not AWG sized?


#2 Apparently, with the earlier models of this tool, they were originally labeled in the MCM standard and now they are magically AWG yet the same sizes as the were before? Hmmmm..? I can picture the meeting at HFT tools now; "Oh yeah we can fix that, lets just re-label the MCM dies in AWG.". Sorry HFT, it doesn't work like that...


#3 Even when you do find a die that works okay they tend to fall out of the tool and into the bilge. My tool/dies are mildly magnetic but no where near enough to prevent the dies from falling out and getting lost..


#4 The dies are HORRIBLY machined, even if machined to a mythical made up wire standard...


#5 Can someone please tell HFT there is no 7 AWG wire in the US....