10 Harbor Freight Hand Tools Every DIYer Will Wish They Had Sooner

Hand tools are slower, more physically demanding, and sometimes even harder to use than their powered brethren. Every major tool brand produces them, yet so many DIYers focus most of their attention on power alternatives. Even so, there's something special about chiseling out a recess or retooling a screw thread under the power of your own hands. And while power tools are wonderful additions to the toolbox, there are occasions where they just can't provide the precision oomph necessary. Fastening a delicate screw, measuring a precision cutline, or tearing out old fasteners to reclaim a board often demand a hand tool that's tailored specifically to the task. 

Unfortunately, these specialty demands often require a tool that might not already be in your toolbox. It's these occasions when DIYers wish they'd rounded out their collection a bit sooner. Fortunately, Harbor Freight carries a wide range of tools, including some pretty essential hand implements. From specialty hammers to workpiece cutting tools, these Harbor Freight offerings are staples in both vintage and modern DIY workbenches. Whether you're trying to improve your home or garden, once you bring these 10 hand tools into your collection, you'll wonder why you didn't invest in these unique and versatile instruments sooner.

The bench vise is a versatile tool that elevates everything a woodworker, home welder, machinist, or hobby DIYer can accomplish. No matter what kinds of projects you plan on tackling around the home or in your garage setup, a bench vise is one of the first things you should invest in — seriously! The vise might not seem like an essential piece of equipment; it can't screw or hammer a fastener into place, and it doesn't have the ability to move around the workspace with you. This leads some 'early career' DIYers to discount the value of a tool that doesn't feel very tool-like on the surface.

However, a bench vise provides a crucial extra set of hands. When grinding a metal piece or even replacing the grip on a golf club, the immobility that a vise brings to the table is irreplaceable. Vises come in a range of sizes and styles, though, so it can be difficult to find one that suits your particular needs. Harbor Freight offers a well-rounded choice in the Central Machinery 5-1/2-Inch Reversible Bench Vise. Retailing for $130, the Central Machinery vise is large enough to capture work measuring up to 7-3/4 inches in the reversed position. The jaws provide nearly 5,000 pounds of clamping force, and the vise's body swivels on a 360-degree axis for full rotation around the corner of your workbench — for lengthways grabbing or short sided piece holding to keep the jaws out of your way. The vise includes an anvil, too, allowing for routine striking operation when necessary.

An in-store only product that requires you to visit your local Harbor Freight, the Central Forge Mattock Pick (finished off with a fiberglass handle) is one tool that brings huge versatility to your DIY project slate. Coming in at under $50, this Harbor Freight find (listed at $27) is a must-have tool for anyone who frequents the landscaping around their home on a Saturday afternoon. The mattock is an age-old hand tool that brings two landscaping tools into one striking head. A mattock can feature a pick or quasi-axe head on the reverse side, with a sharpened hoe blade on the front. These tools are crucially important when digging trenches for flower beds, aerating stubborn ground that needs tilling for a new season of planting — or when resodding a lawn, for instance — or chopping down a tree by hand. The side-oriented blade allows a DIYer to deliver ground level blows to the stump, removing it from the bottom entirely one the tree's aerial growth has been felled.

A forged and heat-treated steel blade combined with a 6-plus pound overall package make for a physically powerful striking tool that still brings nuance and precision to the cultivation tasks around your home. Rounding out the mattock pick is a fiberglass handle. Using fiberglass reduces vibration significantly over a wooden alternative and makes for a long lasting handle that will virtually never need replacing. Fiberglass handles are typically lighter, as well, providing better swing control and precise striking action for a more efficient cutting or digging operation.

The dead blow hammer is a perfect fit for a variety of DIYers, such as fine woodworkers and home mechanics who need a specialty tool. As the name might imply, the hammer delivers a deadened blow due to the shot found within the hammer's mallet construction. Rather than a solid hammer with material spread evenly throughout the face, a dead blow hammer is more or less hollow. Inside the body, these hammers are filled with metal pellets, sand, or other loose material that move as the hammer is swung. During a strike, the shot is pushed toward the rear end of the hammer, and as the tool makes contact, the shot falls down to the "face" end to effectively dampen the elasticity of the strike. This creates a deadened inertia that makes the hammer immensely efficient at striking delicate parts, attacking tight spaces, and removing stuck components that need a massive hit to dislodge.

The Pittsburgh 3-lb. Neon Orange Dead Blow Hammer costs just $11 and is the perfect tool for woodworkers, auto mechanics, and any other DIYer looking to add versatile striking capabilities to their toolbox. This dead blow hammer is heavy enough to provide quality striking force while providing a non-marring strike head so that users can swing away at delicate parts, metal components, or soft or hard woods without worrying about sparking, surface damage, or marking the workpiece. The steel core handle makes for a durable hammer that will last a very long time, and the bright orange outer coating allows for an easily distinguishable tool.

An adjustable wrench might seem like an oddity on a list of tools that DIYers and home improvers wouldn't already have. Yet, it's the specifics of the Doyle 15-Inch High Performance Adjustable Wrench that sets it apart and makes it something unique to add to the work bench. First of all, the Doyle wrench, retailing at $30 from Harbor Freight, is precision machined for butter-smooth operation through the adjustment knob. Laser etching offers precise size markings along the face for a dialed in grip that won't fail with the help of non-slip jaws that adjust out to a maximum capacity of 1-3/4 inches.

Bells and whistles aside, the real star of the show in this adjustable wrench is its length. While many DIYers will have a basic set of sockets, wrenches, and ratchets, length is a big deal and can really make or break a project when the going gets tough. The typical set won't include extra long bars or wrench arms that are simply necessary when dealing with particularly troublesome bolts and other workpieces. A 15-inch wrench is fairly non-standard, providing a happy medium in price, torque production, and usability that bridges the gap between standard and non-standard torque needs. While longer wrenches exist, a 15-inch variant is the perfect option for a DIYer looking to bring in more power while maintaining their ability to get into tight spaces and avoid carting around an impressively heavy hand tool.

A hammer tacker is the evolution in staple guns that DIYers often don't know that they need. A stapler is a common find in the toolbox of DIYers across the country, and yet anyone using a standard stapler is missing out on a major upgrade that will truly elevate their ability to get into tight spaces, quickly fasten material, and generally find more enjoyment in their projects. The hammer tacker is a fast fastening stapler that showcases a more streamlined body than your grandfather's staple gun and can deliver staples at a much faster pace. The Fasten-Pro Hammer Tacker at Harbor Freight costs just $15, as well, meaning this major improvement to your DIY workflow doesn't have to be a major expense.

The all-steel frame of the Fasten-Pro tool is hard wearing and will stand up to a wide range of job conditions and demands. The comfort grip handle at the tail end of the tool helps make the work less strenuous, too. All manner of stapling needs can be accomplished at a rapid pace with a hammer tacker, from carpet underlay installation to weed barrier placement within raised garden beds. The transition to a hammer tacker is one that many won't have already completed, but once you make the switch, you'll wonder how you didn't come across the hammer tacker much sooner.

The ability to cut a new thread in a seated bolt or any other workpiece that will receive a fastener is a crucial competency that many DIYers overlook. The task doesn't feature prominently in a lot of DIY work, but those who understand how to use a tap and die set cherish their tool, especially when the time comes to consider a large part replacement versus a simple recut operation. The Pittsburgh SAE and Metric Tap and Die Set is a 60-piece affair that comes in a sturdy carrying case for longevity and can perform virtually and rethreading you might face off against in your home improvement work, automotive revamp, or machine shop hobby craft.

The many tap tools in the set offer a plethora of size options for rethreading a hole that will accept a fastener, while the dies littered throughout the case's molded holders are used to recut the threads on a fastener that will be seated in a screw hole. The set features both imperial and metric measurements for cutting power that can tackle just about any job you'll find. The ability to rethread an integrated component on a larger workpiece is paramount for a DIYer looking to tackle jobs on their own while keeping costs low. The tools are precision ground with alloy steel builds that have been heat treated and hardened for a hard wearing tool set that will stand up to any job you might find around the house.

A hand plane is a tool that every woodworker will want in their collection. Hand planes are time-honored tools that bring an angled cutting blade into precise contact with a wooden workpiece to shave off segments to create a flat surface. As a woodworker or DIYer glides the plane over a wooden surface, the tool draws down on high spots and takes a smooth shaving of extra material to lower it down to the same height as the lower areas that surround it. These tools feature an angle iron, chip breaker, frog, and of course, the cast iron or steel body that provides the pane with its angular and iconic form.

The Central Forge Hand Plane Two-Piece Set, featuring a No. 4 Jack Plane and a Mini Plane offers all the smoothing power you need to tackle door installation, precision shaving needs on surfaces that require flat edges, and more. The Jack Plane is perfect for standard smoothing requirements and provides a solid cutting surface that's wide enough to quickly tackle large areas. The Mini Plane is a one handed shaver that's ideal for knocking down sharp edges and finishing off the precision wood shaving needs to perfect a surface's edge with exacting standards. At $18 for the pair of planes, Harbor Freight's offering is more than valuable. The Jack Plane features a cast iron body for heavy smoothing work while the Mini Plane is made with a stamped steel body for lightweight finish planing.

The cat's paw is a humble yet widely applicable hand tool. It features a pull arm and claw that replace the nail-pulling power of a standard claw hammer, but it offers much greater functionality and precision in this task. The Honest Carpenter consistently raves about the value of a cat's paw, naming it "one of the most useful demolition tools ever made." Pittsburgh's 10-Inch Multipurpose Pry Bar is perhaps the most valuable iteration of the cat's paw available in nearly any storefront, online or in person. At $4, the pry bar is a true steal of a deal. The steel construction ensures long-lasting pulling power that won't fail you when tackling any manner of fasteners, facing, or molding removal needs.

The bar offers an angled nail puller on one end that won't mar surfaces in the same way that a claw hammer is wont to do. This gives a DIYer better pulling power with the help of a lengthy steel bar without worrying about chipping, marking, denting, or otherwise damaging the underlying surface around or beneath the fastener in question. On the other end of the tool, the cat's paw delivers a flat pry bar blade that's excellent for getting into molding, facing, or wainscoting and can be used to remove a range of material, also without delivering collateral damage to the surrounding areas.

An essential tool for welders, woodworkers, and construction pros alike, the speed square is a simple looking tool with a massively potent design dripping with features and functionality. The Doyle 7-Inch Professional Rafter Square is an immaculate example of this form. At $11, the speed square sits right in the middle of smaller bodied squares (4- or 5-inch varieties for trim work and smaller jobs) and the larger 12- or 24-inch units that are in demand on some professional jobsites. A 7-inch rafter square is perfect for marking out right angles on boards, or measuring intermediate distances across the workpiece ahead of ripping the board down to size. These speed squares are instrumental in finding precision angles across a board's face or marking out a line at a precise measurement (in quarter inches on the Doyle model) with the help of continuous scribe notches.

The speed square features laser-etched markings for long-lasting measurement capabilities on an anodized aluminum frame for excellent corrosion resistance, lightweight functionality, and major durability from one application to the next across many years of use. A speed square, as the name implies, can massively ramp up the pace at which you mark out boards and make cuts when performing DIY projects of all sorts. It's a crucial tool that every DIYer should have in their toolbox.

Pittsburgh's 6-Inch Digital Caliper with SAE and Metric Fractional Readings offers excellent value and immense precision in measurement. Having a set of calipers is crucial when it comes to delicate DIY work. While precise measurements might not matter all that much when building a basic workbench for your shed or drilling holes for new wiring that will hide behind a faceplate, other applications demand critical accuracy at all times. When measuring for a woodworking project, for instance, you might find that you need to cut with millimeter precision to make interlocking parts in a dovetail joint fit. Finding replacements for dowels or bolts is also far easier when working with a caliper rather than eyeballing the size. Pittsburgh's digital caliper offers both analog measurements printed along the steel body's length and a digital readout that's easy to see and precise down to within 0.001 inch (0.03 millimeters).

The caliper extends out to a 6-inch reading and offers reversible jaws for both interior dimension measurements and exterior measurement capabilities, and it can also perform step measurements. A digital caliper is one of those tools that you'll always find a use for after you buy one. The Pittsburgh caliper is available in store only, but it will be shipping with online orders by October 7, 2024. The caliper comes with a carrying case to protect the tool and costs $23.