Harbor Freight Sells A Heavy Duty Tool You Won't Find At Home Depot

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When people shop at discount hardware retailer Harbor Freight, scoring deals and low prices are often their primary motivation. However, there are other good reasons to consider Harbor Freight. Although the retailer frequently offers instant savings and coupons you can use to save money, it also has some branded tools and designs that you won't find at other hardware retailers, even though places like Home Depot have a far wider selection of brands and products.

While most people focus on the cheap tools at Harbor Freight, you can potentially save significant money and find unique larger power tools online or at physical stores. One Harbor Freight power tool you won't find at Home Depot is the gasoline-powered Central Machinery Sawmill ($2,500).  Home Depot doesn't offer a gas-powered sawmill, and the closest matching product found on its website is the Grizzly Industrial Electric Sawmill ($3,375). 

Of course, not everyone needs a portable sawmill. Generally, people who want to cut their own logs from harvested or downed trees can use this type of tool, whether they're hobbyist woodworkers or people living off the grid. If you do projects that require odd sizes of lumber, you could use the portable sawmill to create boards with specific dimensions. Some machines can create lumber as thick as 7 inches, which is ideal for support posts and load-bearing beams.

Beyond the initial price savings offered with the Harbor Freight gas-powered sawmill, are there other advantages to using this design compared to the Home Depot electric sawmill? If you need to bring the machine somewhere to saw the logs on-site, the gas-powered engine lets you work anywhere. Some people transport these tools in the back of a pickup truck or on a trailer, bringing the machine to the logs. Although you could potentially run an electric sawmill in a remote location by using a generator, such machines are better-suited for bringing the logs to a stationary worksite. Electric units tend to run quieter than their gas-powered counterparts if that's an important consideration for you.

If you prefer the electric design, one way you'll save significant money at Home Depot is through delivery charges. You usually cannot purchase either sawmill in the stores, but you do receive free ship-to-store or delivery from Home Depot. The Harbor Freight sawmill is an online-only product that carries a $130 charge for delivery.

The Harbor Freight machine can manage logs up to 20 inches in diameter, while Home Depot's electric model has a limit of 13-inch diameter logs. The Home Depot machine has a slower blade with a speed of 2,900 FPM (feet per minute), compared to Harbor Freight's sawmill at 3,279 FPM. The Home Depot sawmill is conveniently wired to run from a 110-volt outlet, which is the most common type of electrical outlet found in homes. The Harbor Freight sawmill runs from commonly available unleaded gasoline.

You won't find the Central Machinery Sawmill anywhere but Harbor Freight (unless you find a used model on the secondary market). It's a brand that only Harbor Freight carries. Offering exclusive brands is a common practice for the discount hardware retailer. In addition to the sawmill, Harbor Freight offers floor shop presses, log splitters, ultrasonic cleaners, cement mixers, and more large power tools under the Central Machinery brand name.

On the Harbor Freight website, 97% of customer reviewers recommend purchasing the sawmill. Customers say they've had success using the machine for cutting both logs and milled lumber that needs resizing. "It's paid for itself several times over, especially with [high] lumber prices," one Harbor Freight customer reviewer says. "Plus, I can mill lumber in dimensions you can't buy at the store." One customer says the sawmill is helping create a large amount of lumber that will be used to build a retirement home from felled pine trees on the property. Another customer built a garage out of logs on-site by cutting them into usable lumber with the sawmill.

A few customers believe the machine is difficult to learn and suffers from blade drift that limits the ability to cut straight boards. One customer appreciated the power and performance found with the Central Machinery Sawmill but upgraded the engine to allow it to operate from an electric start instead of a pull start. However, another customer says replacement and add-on parts are almost impossible to find, and Harbor Freight doesn't carry them.