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Diy Bolt and Nut Making

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Plastic
Joined
Oct 12, 2014
Good evening all,

I am hoping this isnt to foolish​ of a question? Here is my dilemma​.

  • Dont have time running around looking for fasteners, nuts and bolts.
  • Fasteners are getting cost prohibitive​.
  • Not enough space for a full rack of fasteners in sae and metric sizes.

Is there any way to convert an older screw machine? And make your own nuts and bolts?

diy small manual former?

Thoughts?

With all the cnc conversions ect.... Has anyone approached this idea or can point me in the right direction?

Thanks
 
...or can point me in the right direction?

I think the right direction is to head to your local suppliers to buy your fasteners. The key to avoiding the running
around is to plan ahead so you have sufficient stock on hand to complete whatever job you're working on--I can't ever see "making your own"
as a practical solution...
 
Good evening all,

I am hoping this isnt to foolish​ of a question?

I'm afraid it is [1].

No fear. We need to find a way to give you a bit of ribbon for the courage to ask, though.

Stock only what you use routinely.

Let distributors who can ship to you stock what you do not use routinely. It's what they do.

Find decent ones, there's no need to saddle-up and go-fetch any more than to go out each day to see which supermart has the best price that day on five gallons of electricity.

No fastener supplier will do YOUR job. Focus on it, earn better. Fastener cost may not seem like such a big deal, after all.

[1] After 40 years of making our own fasteners, the new Plant Manager did the reverse of your "in-house screw machine" idea. He farmed-out Hardinge production in Pennsylvania to screw-machine production in Switzerland. IIRC, minimum order was 10,000 pieces. We used over 25,000 of that size a year, so were pleased to get them cheaper than WE could reliably buy properly-sized stainless stock and/or suck-up rejects. Ten thou were done over there in but a day or so.

Your minimum quantities are what?
 
Would really need John Weldon to answer this...this level of *****ness :D

So HOW much you are paying for fasteners?
I am living in American equivalent of Alaska and can get normal 8.8 (equivalent to grade 5) bolts/nuts/washers/allen heads to my doorstep about 1.5-2 dollars per pound. 3 usd per pound if I buy just a few from nearest hardware store.
To get any sort of steel better than 1018 I'd have to pay about same.
 
No offense, but making commodity fasteners on an as-needed basis is about the worst way a machinist can spend their time. You should re-evaluate your processes and figure out why this seems attractive, as it indicates there's planning and management deficits that need to be addressed.


^^^^In spades!^^^^

OP, the internet solves all sourcing issues (if you aren't 'local' to one acceptable).

Apparently you have access to a computer.

Doesn't UPS deliver to your location?
 
Would really need John Weldon to answer this...this level of *****ness :D

WeldEn. I don't really want to know if there is a flat on HIS shank or a set-screw, but I don't see him allowing the surgery without a Helluva fight!

And pray he doesn't find out it took a whooooole bunch of US to say what HE could have said in a one-line EFF-bomb!

:)
 
I bookmark a lot of the topics I read on PM, and usually add some additional text to help with in-computer searching ("good info" is a generic tag).

This thread has gotten my first-ever "face palm" tag. Again, no offense OP, we all start somewhere...
 
...we all start somewhere...

Ah, the memories! ..being so poor that one walked to and from school.

Free school bus moved too damned fast to be able to SEE any of the banquet of rusted fasteners in the gravel 'longside the road, let alone harvest the treasure of those still BRIGHT.

Feel like a rich man since ceasing to buy in less than a box of a hundred. Way cheaper than Whiskey or Champagne, them satisfying drawers of fasteners can be.

Best of all, they PREVENT bellyaches and headaches instead of GIVING RISE to them from the hunger of shortage.

Win-Win sicheashun, ain't that?

:)
 
If you think you are going to save either time or money by making your own commercially available nuts or bolts, you are not busy enough to be keeping your doors open. If the bolts and nuts you are after are "prohibitively expensive" then you should be looking for other suppliers, or re-evaluate your order quantities. Going down to the local hardware store and buying a dozen bolts is a waste when you can order a whole box for what they just charged you.
I have had to make bolts before, but only large specialty bolts for customers who were in a bind and couldn't afford to wait for overnight shipping.
 
OK, OP probably got the point. Maybe one of you Americanos can hint few places where to look for reasonable priced bolts&nuttys online to make something usable of this thread? All I know is Fastanal and mcmaster-carr....

Hobby-shop-guy scale reference Schrauben online kaufen will deliver to across seas and beyond permafrost (from Germany to Finland) for free on orders over 200 euros and pricing works out to about 1.5-2 usd per pound on most ordinary items. 1000pcs M6 nuts is about 6 dollars or 0.006 usd/pcs. Can't really compete with that..
 
I bookmark a lot of the topics I read on PM, and usually add some additional text to help with in-computer searching ("good info" is a generic tag).

This thread has gotten my first-ever "face palm" tag. Again, no offense OP, we all start somewhere...


It seems foolish that it's taken me so long to articulate this, but . . .your simple statement catalyzed it for me.

As many of us, I'm of an age where I pursued my interests (doing and schooling aside) via printed matter (books & catalogs).

Reading books and catalogs is a PRIVATE activity. It wasn't (still isn't) necessary to publish level of ignorance going in.

Is it necessary that persons born in the information age be void of any sense of achievement in private learning?

The desire for instant satisfaction (spoon feeding) is too powerful? Maybe so.
 
OK, OP probably got the point. Maybe one of you Americanos can hint few places where to look for reasonable priced bolts&nuttys online to make something usable of this thread? All I know is Fastanal and mcmaster-carr....

Hobby-shop-guy scale reference Schrauben online kaufen will deliver to across seas and beyond permafrost (from Germany to Finland) for free on orders over 200 euros and pricing works out to about 1.5-2 usd per pound on most ordinary items. 1000pcs M6 nuts is about 6 dollars or 0.006 usd/pcs. Can't really compete with that..

Bolt Depot - Nuts and Bolts, Screws and Fasteners online

Just an example, and but one of MANY, actually - don't stop at that, keep looking.

Google needs to be "steered" now and then.

Ex: I set mine to Spanish, German, Italian.. wotever language and then also country top-level-domain where I can do when looking for 'stuff' that locals would get presented but would be pushed waaaay down-page(s) or even missed outright on the US-based search preferences.

Trying to get around THEIR biased prefs is imperfect, but that helps.
 
Pays to always have a length of all your common sized fastners threaded rod and nuts in stock, ideal hell no, but its rare you can't at least create a fix for now with a length of threaded rod. Washers in the smaller sizes will cover both metric and imperial, that just leaves a index or 2 of nuts and a bucket's worth of assorted threaded rods.

The plan ahead comment is still best though.
 
There's really no way someone asked this and is serious...seriously

That's like asking how to make your own nails, where to get a machine, and if it's gonna be cheaper than going to home Depot and buying a box for like 5 bucks...oh wait, that's exactly what the op asked...

You can fix fat, you can fix ugly...you just can't fix stupid
 
If you are a business it is different than if you are doing for hobby purposes I guess

If you can save more than you make in the time it takes to make your own fasteners I can only assume you're doing it as a hobby?

I will be making my own pit bull style clamps, but only cos I'm a startup and to buy enough to fixture my parts I'd have to spend about $800 in clamps for a couple of fixture plates, and I could make (poor imitations that will work well enough for my purposes) for about $30 in materials and a couple of evenings.

So it's horses for courses, as long as you are happy investing your time in the saving, and it makes sense, then why not, but it's unlikley to be better than buying them from a cash perspective.
 
Reminds me of an episode of "King of Queens" where Arthur was upset about something to do with a screw/screwdriver and decided to invent his own.... the "A-hole screwdriver!" :D
 








 
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