Harbor Freight Reviews

Link: http://HarborFreightReviews.com

Item: 3" High Speed Air Cutter
Item number: 47077
Retail price: $19.99
Frequent sale price: $9.99
Target price: $8.99
Best Price: $6.49 (with coupon)
Item Link

Good for so much more than cutting through air, this little gem is a great addition to your tool box (presuming you have at least a medium size compressor to run it). Small and compact yet powerful enough to cut through the hardened shank of a Bell bicycle lock with a few minutes of intermittent cutting. Why would you buy an air hammer for removing those rusty bolts when this is so much faster and easier?

The required 3" cutting disks go on sale regularly, so watch the price for these disks; otherwise Harbor Freight will recapture the cost of this lost leader quickly with the expendables (several to get you started are usually included in the box with the unit, but Harbor Freight’s cost cutting [pun intended ] could omit these in future stock). Also, note that this takes the 3" not the larger 4" disks. Removing the safety guard may permit use of the larger disks, but be careful to wear eye protection (perhaps even face) in any case because this baby spins dust and debris off the project very fast (18,000 rpm nominally). Finally, this air cutter nominally requires 5 cfm @ 90 psi but it works well enough for my applications using their medium-size portable air compressor (target price: $79.99 with coupon) with short bursts allowing the compressor to build up pressure intermittently. Buying this tool to remove a frozen bicycle lock not only saved a lot of time in comparison to cutting with a hack saw, but the air cutter is cheaper than a good quality hack saw even from Harbor Freight!

The next test will be to cut through brick and concrete block to make a clean opening for installing a through-the-wall air conditioner this spring. I can't wait to try it here. The high speed air cutter should make a clean cut on the interior brick and the air hammer should be able to chisel its way through the remaining thickness of the brick and block. An update will follow when that project is complete, but don't expect it soon--this project has been on hold for three years while I'm recovering my strength enough to lift the air conditioner in place 8' up the wall.

Bottom: One of the better air tools in the Harbor Freight arsenal, this little cutter whips through frozen locks disgustingly fast. A must buy item from Harbor Freight.