Is the needle scaler worth buying?

Tom Wesenberg

Tom Wesenberg

Well-known member
I've never seen the needle scaler work, but keep seeing it in the Harbor Freight ads. I can't see it doing as good a job as my sandblaster. Has anyone used one and think it's a tool worth buying, or is it just another gimmick tool? Thanks
 
It will relevel a cast surface and leave the area looking like a cast surface.

Great for getting rid of little dents in the side of an engine with out removing material.
 
This tool is used primarily to remove scale from heavy machinery or castings. It's not very good on sheet metal.
 
I have one of the cheap ones, it works good to give a natural texture to repaired cast iron, it will pein the tops of crack repair pins and make the repair dissapear, if the number pad was machined in the past it can make that area look more natural.

It would chip off rust scale on heavy metal, but it will leave a finish that looks like cast iron, but it wouldn't remove all the rust, on tin it would beat it to death.
 
They have their place,and can be handy.I have a couple of old military surplus ones,(Navy)and I used them a lot on machinery I was getting ready to paint.Good for the blisters on farm tractors.They work real good on old trailers where the rust is layered 1/2-3/4 thick.If I'm going to sandblast a lowbed or dump trailer with a lot of that kind of rust I will take all of that off first with the needle scaler.I used to do that with a chipping hammer.I spent an hour with one on a Rogers 40 ton lowbed,I bet it saved me 5 bags of sand and over an hour of blasting time.It is also the best way to clean mortar off bricks too.
 
I just used mine a few weeks ago to remove heavily rusted floor panels. After grinding away the rivets to remove the panel, it cleaned up the cross rails real good. There was a lot of flaky rust on them. Then I sand blasted. I was very pleased with the outcome but I would not use it on any of the sheet metal.
 
While I'm not a big fan of Horror Freight, I did risk the better of their two (I'm guessing at better). It was my last attempt at removing scale off of 3/8" plate. It actually did the job. How many more square feet before it dies, is unknown.....
 
How about to remove rust on the frame without removing the body. I've got a '51 that I want to replace the brake lines and clean up the frame enough to POR 15 but the body isn't coming off the chassis, I just want to knock off the heavy surface rust and make it look decent and fairly clean.
 
That is something I wasn't familiar with but does seem to have some potential with a little creativity. I looked at Eastwood and found their version for $34.88.

p40092.jpg
 
mkmskm said:
How about to remove rust on the frame without removing the body. I've got a '51 that I want to replace the brake lines and clean up the frame enough to POR 15 but the body isn't coming off the chassis, I just want to knock off the heavy surface rust and make it look decent and fairly clean.
Click to expand...

Yep, Works great for that. I just did the same thing on my 89 F-350. I used it for launching the boat in the bay so as you can imagine, It had a lot of flaky rust on the frame. Knocked it all off with minimal effort.
 
I never thought about using it to remove cement and welding slag, but can see where that would be handy. I haven't used my stick welder in years, so I guess I don't need the tool yet.

I had it pictured just as Kurt said and could see it would be handy to give texture to the ground off engine number pad. As of right now, I guess I don't really need to buy the tool. Thanks for all the good ideas.
 
Painters use the needle guns to remove rust and flaking paint off big machinery where sandblasting is impractical.
I wouldn't buy anything from Horror Freight - there are better ones available.

Mel :)
 
I think it would do a good job of putting the scales into the fish, and after you are done with the skillet you could put the crust into the fish too, the cheapest one would be ideal----
 
Marco Tahtaras said:
That is something I wasn't familiar with but does seem to have some potential with a little creativity. I looked at Eastwood and found their version for $34.88.

p40092.jpg
Click to expand...

I have used one of these HF tools for years in my sign business. It works great taking heavy built-up paint off cast metal as well as chipping weld scale and splatter.
 
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