Serious question, my uncle Gary promised a $40 Harbor Freight belt sander would outlast a DeWalt. Six months later, who's the sucker?

Andrew Singh · 2026-10-08T19:30:03.720469+00:00

Back in March my uncle Gary swore up and down that the $40 Chicago Electric sander from Harbor Freight would do everything my $130 DeWalt does, and honestly for the first 3 months he looked like a genius. Then the bearing started screaming last week and the pad wobbles so bad it burned a divot in his walnut table top. So now I'm stuck between "cheap tools are a scam" and "you just got a lemon," and I genuinely can't decide which one is true. Anyone else run a $40 sander hard for a year, did yours hold up or die like Gary's?

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Serious question, my uncle Gary promised a $40 Harbor Freight belt sander would outlast a DeWalt. Six months later, who's the sucker? | Broke But Brilliant - nhfree.com