[MR] Attention, Spiff Shoppers!

[Michael Houghton]

Howdy!

On Wed, Mar 19, 2003 at 10:01:55AM -0500, Towey, Brian wrote:
[snip]
>
> In the latest Harbor Freight catalog, their Beverly Shear clone (made in
> China) is on sale for $75.99.  Their Web site (harborfreight.com) doesn't
> list the discount, so you might have to call and give them the catalog
> number (key=UT8170).  Nothing else converts scrap metal into armor as
> quickly and easily.  Some people don't like the way the blades are ground,
> but I've had no problems with mine.  The item number of the shear is 38413.

There was a discussion of this item recently, I think on rec.org.sca.
Some correspondents reported significant issues with this item, so one
should approach this carefully. http://makeashorterlink.com/?J37126ED3
should bring up the thread.

> And, a few pages over, Harbor Freight sells 24" wooden wagon wheels for $20.
> (Item 47332)  Have any of you ever bought these?  Would they be suitable for
> an Avery-style cart?  Or are they just for decoration?  If you go to the Web
> site and type in the item number, you'll see what I mean.

Those hubs look decorative more than anything else. They may work for
a cart or wagon, but the wheels will wobble on the axle pretty badly.
If you built up the hubs a bit, they might work out OK. I suspect that
what appears to be a tire band is probably pretty light metal as well.
I also see that half of the spokes go into the joints between the fellows,
instead of them all going solidly into fellows. That raises more concerns
about the actual strength. Of course, they are labeled as "decorative",
so I can't fault the item or its presentation.

yours,
Herveus
--
Michael and MJ Houghton   | Herveus d'Ormonde and Megan O'Donnelly
herveus at radix.net         | White Wolf and the Phoenix
Bowie, MD, USA            | Tablet and Inkle bands, and other stuff
                          | http://www.radix.net/~herveus/