Harbor freight is discontinuing their English Wheels. $399 regular, on sale for $165. It comes with a full stand, top anvil, and a 2" bottom anvil. For $165 I took one home. Also got a set of bottom anvils, 3" 4", 6", 8", 12" and flat or $65. I have been looking for one for some time, at that price I decided the time was now. Here is also a good link to some HF upgrades on the English wheel http://www.jamesriser.com/Machinery/EnglishWheel/Finally.html Now I just need to find a bead roller on sale...
That is, indeed, a good buy. I have one in my shop, and while I don't usde it often at all, I did not see the need for a proper (read expensive) English wheel with a massive cast iron frame and anvils that cost more than some entire csars that I have purchased. For what it is, it does the job! Thanks for including the link to the wheel upgrades. I will be looking into some, or all of them in the very near future.
You should check the runout of the upper wheel and the anvils. I made my own anvils but I also bought a set of the HF ones to use on smaller parts. When I bought them they had 4 sets on the floor and the same e wheel you have. I took each sizeanvil from the sets and did a visual runout check by adjusting the anvil so it just touched the top wheel and then rotated the anvil without rotating the top wheel. There was considerable variation in the runout of the anvils so I selected the best of each size and put the others back. I then made a mandrel to mount the anvil on the bearings and spun them in the lathe just touching the contact area with a hand grinder with a very fine wheel to true them up. I have a very stiff frame on my e wheel so runout will get transferred to the workpiece. If you modify the frame like the guy in the link you should still have enough flexibility in the frame to lessen the runout effects. With a soft wheel (I use a go cart slick) for single plane forming the runout has no effect at all. Start making some parts
If you look at old English Wheels, or the better newer ones, they have an extremely stiff frame. The old ones were massive iron castings. When you reduce the distance between the rollers by .005" on one of those machines the metal between them is getting displaced a good percentage of that. Cheaper/lighter machines are flexible. They exert a springy load on the rollers that allows you to shape things, but it's not the same an older/better rigid machine. Not that a cheaper/lighter machine is useless, but there is a reason the better machines cost more. A friend of mine has built English Wheels so stiff that a dial indicator is used to gauge changes to gap between the rollers. With a cheap/flexible unit it would take a ruler to monitor that same parameter.
i was in harbor freight yesterday. bought a drain snake to clean out my mothers clogged drain. i bought one cheaper than i could rent one and yes it broke just as it was finishing removing the clog! the real story is i saw the english wheel with a price tag of $120! i asked about it because i figured it wasn't right and they said they were discoing them and the price was wrong but they would sell me one for that price since it was marked. i should have bought the last 2 they had but i couldn't believe it had the anvil and die till i got home and opened the box. i'm not a big fan of hf but $120 for a english wheel? i don't think i could have bought the stuff to do it with for that. wow.
Caught right when the tool kitty is empty. Looks like I need to throw some stuff on Craigslist. They may not be the greatest english wheels but for that price a lot of us might be able to do things we couldn't do before and then decide if we need a better and more expensive one.
Ok, so I went down to HF to look for one, and they are in fact discontinuing it from the stores, but the guy said not online. So there were no more on the shelf or in the back, but I noticed two top dies just sitting on the shelf, and asked the guy if they were on sale since they won't carry them anymore, so he went to check for me. He comes back and goes, "you can just have 'em". So I get to walk out of there with two brand new free top english wheel dies. Not a bad score, so make sure you look and ask!!!
Princess Auto carries what looks like the exact same one - last I looked it was $399 WITH the set of dies that you would have to buy separately at HF. Steve
Nice score! But they are NOT selling the E wheel online or in stores. Guy told me HF will no longer sell it. If you have a item number you can try and find it online, I had no luck. .
I think its the same one but as you said comes with the dies...I got mine on sale when they first got them ,299.00 and I had 240.00 worth of gift cert from christmas so it was almost free
They won't honor the 20% on the english wheel anymore along with alot of other big dollar items. I bought one awhile back . It 's OK for the price. I'm saving my pennies for the english wheel from Grizzly Industrial. http://www.grizzly.com/products/Professional-English-Wheel/G0496
Well that sucks, guess I'll have to find a set of lower dies on eBay or something, I was planning on making one anyways.
Just talk to store in Portland and was told there is one in Tacoma, Wa. ♦To far for me to go but if some one needs one call store and they will hold. Hope this helps. Ed
There are still four of them in the store in Independence, MO. I reduced their inventory from five to four.
Was there a catalog or announcement that quoted the bottom anvils for $65? I went to a store and there were a few but the guy scanned it and said it was $120 something - I put it back.
Scored one yesterday $132.78 for the wheel and $61.97 for the anvils. While this is not a world beater, I can afford to spend some time and a little cash to make a cheap, usable wheel. Jeronimo, thanks for the headsup and thanks to the other H.A.M.B.'ers for their posts on how to make this a solid unit.
I agree, not a professional piece, but, I have never had the opportunity to touch one let alone opperate one and I bought one a HF several years ago and between the "hands on" and reading here I have built some fun cool stuff that otherwise I could not have. Yes, I now understand the difference between the "PRO" and the HF but again, it does what my skill level can handle. Sure, I would love to have a PRO wheel but dollars and cents don't have it in the budget anytime soon. In fact, I use mine more for flat work after I use my HF "Beverly Shear" to straighten the edges, works sweet! Have fun learning, I am!
so I just called the sioux city iowa store and they are still 399.00---what is the deal there. Also does anyone have the item number. Would sure like to score one. Thanks
No, the price on the shelf was $65, and thats what it scanned. They had a second box of lower anvils and a display e-wheel still. It was the store in woodbridge nj.
And the lower die set part # please? My local store has no idea what any of the tools are called without a part number......big surprise, right?
Some HF staff are like autozone staff. Surprised some staff know what an English wheel is. We went to a HF store in In Harrisburg PA and saw some shrinker stretchers and asked staff about them and he proceded to show us some stretchy tie downs. At least he did say the flags were made in USA.
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