Comment by wlesieutre
3 years ago
What's a good place for well priced bolts if I'm not worried about next day shipping but need them to not be made of pot metal?
3 years ago
What's a good place for well priced bolts if I'm not worried about next day shipping but need them to not be made of pot metal?
Where are you finding pot metal bolts? Your best option should be anything from Ace/Home Depot/Lowes. The matte finish ones are zinc galvanized, that’s just the protective coating. They are made of carbon steel and are graded according to standards set by organizations like SAE.
Hardware stores will have grade 2 bolts for the most part (or the metric equivalents). These will be made with weaker steel and will be cut instead of cold rolled. If you’re doing something that needs more strength than that, you can get grade 5 or 8 bolts. These will be cold rolled from higher strength steel and may be tested with a penetrant dye to check for any fractures. You can get those at a hardware store or at many online stores. If you need more strength than that, you’re probably in an aerospace application and I recommend that you don’t ask for advice on HN.
If you’re buying a shit-load of bolts (like, more than a thousand of one kind of bolt), then you can go to a wholesale website.
Haven't got pot metal bolts, just thinking of some machine screw assortments I've bought on Amazon. They've worked fine for 3d printing projects, but makes me wary of fasteners from unknown sources if strength could matter.
Hardware store has been my go to, is that the reference people are using for saying McMaster bolts are 4x overpriced?
Yeah, it is. I wouldn’t worry about low grade bolts from unknown sources, really, unless it’s a safety critical application. The cost benefit to the manufacturer for cheaping out is almost nothing. To make it look like a bolt you’re going to have to make it correctly. You could use a cheaper metal but it doesn’t get much cheaper than low carbon steel which is already what they’re supposed to be made of.
Yeah, if you can buy what you want at big box hardware store, then do, prices won't get much lower than that, and you'll get something that's certified to a standard. McMaster is useful if your time is worth too much to waste it on trips to Home Depot, or if you want something less standard.
1 reply →
> Where are you finding pot metal bolts?
Self-assembled furniture seems to have terrible bolts more often than not. Instrument stands and drum kits also come with softest imaginable bolts except the most expensive gear. I'm sure there are other products like this.
Are you stripping hex bolts? If so, the solution may be to buy some good hex bits (and a bit extender) which make it much easier to avoid slipping and stripping the bolt compared to a plain hex key.
2 replies →
The last thing I bought from IKEA had plastic screws. To be fair, I've not had any problems with them but I as a bit taken aback to see them.
1 reply →
While the bolts at home depot are made of some form of iron they often are not graded at all. There is a reason: they wouldn't pass any quality tests. The graded ones are probably okay, I'm not sure as I wouldn't attempt to use anything they have in something important as I have no way of knowing something didn't get put in the wrong bin by mistake.
Home Depot's private label brand (Everbilt) are absolutely graded. An SAE grade 1 or 2 is unmarked but if you look at their metric bolts you'll see the 8.8 grade mark.
1 reply →
Call a local machine shop, mechanic or welder and ask. Almost every town and city has a store that specializes in hardware for tradies that has better pricing and selection than HD or Ace or homeowner stores.
Fastenal is good for wholesale, and if you're lucky enough to have a location closeby, you can have it next day or even same day.
The only problem is that Fastenal makes McMaster Carr look like bargain basement prices.
I just ordered 8, 1.5" x 3/8" square head set screws from Fastenal. . . . for $18.
That's a bit much.
My go-to for stuff like this used to be SmallParts.com back when McMaster-Carr wouldn't sell to individuals (they do now). Amazon bought Small Parts and renamed it Amazon Supply. I haven't bought anything from them recently, but it's worth a shot.
Small Parts was amazing they specialized in, you got it, small components such as fasteners (you could get titanium screws if you needed them), small mechanicals such as tubing, solenoid valves, bearings, shafting, metal, etc. They were a prototyper's dream.
Bolt Depot? The Voron folks seem to like them, but I haven't ever ordered from them.
I have ordered a large amount of bolts from them, and they're quite good. They don't have McMaster's selection of weirdo stuff (ceramic bolts, titanium bolts, etc), but for your standard Grade 5 / Grade 8 etc, they're solid.