Turns Out my Car is Black

Today I did something I should have done long ago. I got myself an electric pressure washer.

I already have a gas pressure washer. It’s nice and strong. It’s powerful enough to use for spraying bleach solution onto the second story of a house with high ceilings. Unfortunately, leftist corn gas is hard on the carburetor, so when I decide to use it, I never know whether I’m going to have to take it apart.

It’s also very loud and gives off carbon monoxide, so taking it upstairs and running it in a bedroom while I use it to clean the roof gutters is not possible.

If you want to be confused, do what I did. Look at reviews and try to find out who makes the best electric pressure washer. Every site reaches different conclusions.

Consumer Reports, as is often the case, is useless. They downrate machines with tightly-focused spray nozzles because somebody could hurt their widdle fingers and toesies with them. That’s just like them. I remember when they said a 6-cylinder Camaro was their top-rated sports car because it got better mileage than actual sports cars.

Any pressure washer will accept a nozzle with a narrow pattern. You just have to spend 5 bucks and buy the nozzle.

Other sites came up with varying recommendations. A company with the disturbing name “Greenworks” seemed to do well. Then I read people were having trouble with them leaking oil. Also, Greenworks apparently doesn’t do warranty service. They say they do, but I’ve seen people who have bought them say they don’t respond to warranty inquiries. If so, there is no warranty. A warranty a company doesn’t honor is not a warranty. It’s a scam.

Ryobi does well in reviews. Problem: Ryobi’s warranty is no better than the one Greenworks offers. Ryobi requires you to take your sick machine to a repair center they approve. In my case, that’s a 150-mile drive, all told. And that’s assuming I only go once. A machine can fail more than once, and it is not unusual for repairs to have to be redone.

Guess what I bought? Harbor Freight. I bought a Bauer machine plus a two-year extended warranty.

Pressure washers break. Every last one is made in China, and if there is a difference in quality, I have seen no evidence of it. They all have Chinese pumps. My Homelite, which has a great Honda motor, has a Chinese pump. On a pressure washer, the pump is what usually breaks. Pumps have short lifespans. You can look that up. My motor will run for eternity as long as I keep oil in it, but a pump that goes a couple of years under moderate use is about normal.

I think they count on people buying new machines when the pumps die, and that’s sad, because you can get a new pump on Ebay for $100 and install it yourself in 10 minutes.

There is really nothing to a pressure washer but a motor, a pump, a wand, and a hose. The rest, you could make from two-by-fours. Replacing a pressure washer is only a good idea if you can’t use tools.

The Bauer has a brushless motor which should run a very long time. The pump and hose, I can change easily. It has a three-year warranty, and they don’t repair them. If it dies, I take it to Harbor Freight, and they give me a new one. I would have to be nuts to buy anything else.

Today, I did something I almost never do. I cranked up the new machine and washed the car. I have a foam cannon. You put car soap in it and attach it to a pressure washer, and it covers the car in foam. Then you can either scrub it by hand or use the pressure washer to knock most of the dirt off, which, of course, is what I did. If everything was where I expected it to be when I started, I could do the whole car in 15 minutes. It’s not a quality job, but it’s good enough for me. It’s better than what I get at the nearest coin-op place.

I also want to work on the pool deck and the porches. The gas machine is overkill, and I don’t want the noise or the added hassle.

The literature says not to use bleach in the pressure washer because it may ruin the pump. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. That’s cute. I would rather replace the pump 5 times than pay someone $300 a whack to clean my house. Everyone with any sense uses bleach in pressure washers, and you can rinse it out and shoot a protective product in afterward.

When you want to get mold off your house with a pressure washer, you don’t rely on pressure. You use the machine to shoot a low-pressure spray of bleach solution on your house. Pressure will take your paint off and do other damage.

A lot of people still think buying Chinese at Harbor Freight is unpatriotic. But they buy Chinese DeWalt and Chinese Milwaukee. They go to Home Depot and buy Chinese tools. They drive there in cars from Japan and Korea.

Here is the brutal truth: Harbor Freight is no longer the low-budget competitor to Home Depot. It IS Home Depot, for many purposes. Home Depot is full of bad Chinese stuff that would be right at home at Harbor Freight, and Harbor Freight now sells tools that are just as good as, and often better than, American-branded tools. If you buy a Bauer pressure washer, you’re not giving up quality. You’re getting pretty much the same thing Home Depot sells, except Bauer will give you a brushless motor and a three-year instant-exchange warranty.

Here’s disturbing news: Harbor Freight Bremen locking pliers are better than Irwin Vise Grips. Go look for yourself.

While I’m adding to my arsenal, I may also get a Harbor Freight Doyle anvil.

Like many easily-swayed males, I have watched a lot of Forged in Fire, and it got me interested in anvils. First, it got me interested in knives. I made a couple of boning knives from 440C steel using belt grinders, and then I lost interest. This was years ago, and I didn’t send the knives off for hardening until this week.

Forged knives are okay, but they’re inferior to knives you can make by grinding stainless stock. You can’t forge stainless without ruining it, so if you forge, you use steel that rusts, and you’re dependent on your own competence to prevent faults and cracks that will cause the knives to fail. On top of that, modern stainless is completely superior to carbon steel in every imaginable way. This is why I made stainless knives.

Still, I couldn’t help studying up on anvils, and I considered forging knives. I still consider it. It would be fun, and knives aren’t the only things you can forge.

One nice thing about forged knives is that you can harden them at home with a cheap container of oil. Stainless knives require expensive kiln-like ovens.

As a result of all this study, I learned a lot about anvils. I learned forged steel anvils are the best. After that, cast steel. Cast iron is terrible. I also learned that it’s stupid to look for an old American or European anvil. People used to sell them for nothing. They used to give them away. Forged in Fire ruined all that. Fans bought up all the cheap anvils. Now the only way to get one is to cheat a widow or someone else who has no idea what it’s worth, and if you do that, you’re trash.

A lot of people who talk before they think still advise others to go out and get a cheap old American anvil. It’s amazing how people love to give stupid advice without checking. There are know-it-alls out there who actually make fun of people for buying new anvils instead of chasing nonexistent American bargains.

In today’s market you can expect to pay $5 per pound, minimum, for worn-out junk. And you will probably have to wait for months to see the junk pop up on the web, and then you’ll have to outrun other people as gullible as yourself. People who forge knives like anvils that start at around 70 pounds. This is assuming the anvils aren’t special tiny anvils made only for knives. It’s possible to make a really small anvil that works, if you give up other functions. You put the mass in the area where the knife will be worked.

Also, an anvil that’s on the small side can be made to work like a bigger one if you anchor it well. A lot of people use 30-kg. (66-pound) Chinese general-purpose anvils without serious problems.

You can get a superior 142-pound Chinese anvil designed by, and sold by, an American company for around $800 shipped. You can get an excellent 77-pound German anvil for a similar price. Below these levels, there are various Chinese items which are odd but acceptable.

Harbor Freight just came out with a cast steel anvil that costs $139 and weighs 66 pounds. In doing so, they blew other sellers out of the water. There are other Chinese anvils the same size, and the price is about the same, but you have to order them, and they’re not designed well. Harbor Freight’s Doyle anvil is ergonomically much better, you can go see it before you buy, and if it has a problem, you can take it back to Harbor Freight the same day. Anvils sometimes have defects and soft spots. Do you really want to deal with shipping anvils back and forth, hoping faceless Chinese vendors do the right thing?

Harbor Freight says the Doyle anvil’s face is hardened to Rockwell 55-62, which is as hard as a good pocket knife. A knife with a Rockwell figure of 62 may be too hard to be useful because it will be brittle. That’s how hard 62 is. The other Chinese companies claim 50.

I’m no expert, but if I’m going to be hitting a piece of steel with a hammer, I want it to be hard enough to take it.

Why should I get an anvil if I may never forge anything? Because everyone needs an anvil. They’re good for various metalworking tasks, and sometimes you just need something you can bang on. The other day, I had to make a ring of 1″ steel flat bar, and I really wished I had an anvil with a horn for shaping rings.

I was going to get an anvil today, but they sold out because I procrastinated.

Of course, once I have an anvil, I have to wonder how long it will be before I buy a forge.

Today I picked up a pair of long vise grips which will function as tongs. I couldn’t resist.

Forges used to cost a lot of money unless they were homemade. Now you can get a good stainless forge made in the USA for $85. When someone offers me a deal like that, it’s practically coercion. I’ve had many dinners that cost more than that.