Subject: Re: [Shop-talk] Nuts and Bolts

From: "Elton E. (Tony) Clark" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 18 Aug 2013 17:24:31 -0500

Race car guru and author, Carroll Smith, wrote in his book on hardware
something like:  "Gather up every bolt, nut and washer that is NOT at least
grade 5 and throw them in the trash so you'll never be tempted to use
inferior hardware on your project".

I can't get THAT serious about hardware; I work on race cars but I also
work on the lawn mower now and then  I DO have a bolt bin with about 100
little drawers and I DO occasionally sort out the bucket of used hardware
and put the PERFECT ones back in the bin.
  It doesn't take that much to stock a bolt bin;  Start with the basic
sizes you use most.  I use 1/4, 5/16, 3/8, 7/16 and 1/2 and I separate the
bins of each size into NF and NC threads and "long & short (under and over
1 1/2").  Ten more bins for nuts and washers.  If you find a place that
sells good bolts by the pound and just buy 4 or 5 of each size your
investment will be small and you'll save many a trip to the hardware
store.  So far, all my metrics land in one or two bins and I have to dig
for them.
Tony in Texas

On 18 August 2013 16:46, Jeff Scarbrough <[email-masked]> wrote:

> Here's a question for discussion...What do you do with all the old
> nuts and bolts you collect?
>
> Do you throw them in one big coffee can?  Sort them somehow? Or
> (gasp!) toss them and buy new whenever you need them?
>
> Been cleaning the shop today, and pondering buying one of those HF
> tumblers and polishing all my old hardware...
>
> Jeff Scarbrough
> Corrosion Acres, Ga.
> _______________________________________________
>
> [email-masked]
> Donate: http://www.team.net/donate.html
> Suggested annual donation  $12.96
> Archive: http://www.team.net/archive
> Forums: http://www.team.net/forums
> Unsubscribe/Manage:
> http://autox.team.net/mailman/options/shop-talk/[email-masked]
_______________________________________________

[email-masked]
Archive: http://www.team.net/archive

---

From: Dave C <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 18 Aug 2013 16:31:54 -0700

I have about half a dozen of the clear plastic shoe boxes from Target or 
wherever, and have all the nuts in one, washers in another and then more 
or less sort the SAE sized bolts/machine screws from 1/4 to 1/2 in their 
own tubs.  Everything metric goes into one tub. Anything  under 1/4 goes 
in little individual drawers.  Still keeping nails and drywall screws, 
sorted by size, in coffee cans.

On 8/18/2013 2:46 PM, Jeff Scarbrough wrote:
> Unsubscribe/Manage: http://autox.team.net/mailman/options/shop-talk/[email-masked]

[email-masked]

---

From: John Miller <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 18 Aug 2013 17:32:02 -0700

> nuts and bolts you collect?

I have this discussion with myself regularly.  Often quite loudly.

> (gasp!) toss them and buy new whenever you need them?

I keep generic sizes and shapes (SAE 1/4-7/16 in size increments from 
3/4 up to 3 or so, M6/M8/M10 in a smaller range of sizes) in inventory, 
buy 'em from McMaster-Carr.

But...there's all kinds of oddball and interesting fasteners that come 
out of things you disassemble, and it's really a PITA to sort and stock 
all those things.

They all go into gallon-size buckets my wife brings home from work (the 
gallon size were usually olives or salad dressing, the five-gallon ones 
pickles) and get sorted when the stack of olive buckets gets too tall 
for me to work around.

That's one of those "it's ten PM, everyone else is in bed, get your 
sorry ass out to the shop and do it" jobs.

Slightly less painful now that I've got speakers and amps and a little 
Bluetooth dongle wired up in the garage and shop so I can blast my 
Dollyrots and Girls From The Clouds Pandora channels while I work, but 
I've still got a WHOLE LOT of those jobs stacked up.

> tumblers and polishing all my old hardware...

Most of the good factory stuff has yellow zinc or cadmium plating, or 
some sort of passivating, that you don't want to knock off if you don't 
have to, so watch out for polishing.

I need to come up with some sort of plating setup for various stuff, old 
OE-specific nuts and bolts like the Ford 5.0 rocker-cover bolts with the 
stud that sticks up for the plug-wire loom to snap onto, the airbox 
snap-latches for the same application, etc.

John.

[email-masked]

---

From: "John Niolon" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 18 Aug 2013 21:10:55 -0500

guys... when you only have 24x24   you got to do better than coffee cans... 
get organized...

http://jniolon.classicpickup.com/storage/storage.htm

I've got a 5 gallon bucket of old stuff that has been sitting in the corner 
for years....I think it's still there...  I use new for everything !  cheap 
insurance
later
John
_______________________________________________

[email-masked]

---

From: Dave C <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 18 Aug 2013 20:12:59 -0700

OK, had to look those up.

On 8/18/2013 5:32 PM, John Miller wrote:
> Dollyrots and Girls From The Clouds 

[email-masked]

---

From: "Elton E. (Tony) Clark" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 18 Aug 2013 22:14:56 -0500

Randall wrote:
But when I'm just replacing the leg on the BBQ grille,
Grade 5 is a waste

My Grade 5 bolts cost a buck thirty more than grade 2 PER POUND!  Gosh,
that must be nearly a nickel each for a decent bolt!
Tony

On 18 August 2013 20:23, Randall <[email-masked]> wrote:

> > Here's a question for discussion...What do you do with all
> > the old nuts and bolts you collect?
>
> For the largest portion of them (in standard shapes & sizes), I sort them
> out into drawers.  I've got several shelves full of metal drawers salvaged
> from a previous employer who was closing a business area; plus quite a few
> of the smaller cabinets with the plastic drawers.
>
> Then some of the oddball stuff is in coffee cans, sorted roughly by where
> it
> came from.  At some level though, I just throw them away.  The odds of my
> ever needed the funky threaded peg for the shift linkage on a POS car that
> blew up 10 years ago just aren't high enough to merit keeping it; even
> though it would be difficult to replace if I ever did need one.
>
> I've got "Screw to Win", and I might take Carroll's advice if I only ever
> built race cars.  But when I'm just replacing the leg on the BBQ grille,
> Grade 5 is a waste and I'm more interested in not having to make a trip to
> the hardware store to find that M6x1x64 screw that fits.  ISTR that
> somewhere towards the back of the book, he also admits that high tensile
> isn't always necessary.
>
> -- Randall

[email-masked]

---

From: Wayne <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 19 Aug 2013 00:18:25 -0400

> nuts and bolts you collect?

To me the trick is how do you keep them usable and accessible without 
blowing too much time micro managing them. Being able to find a precise 
size quickly in a pinch without making a 12 mile round trip to Lowes or 
the FLAPS (assuming they're open) is a BIG time and money saver.

I've bought maybe 8 of those plastic "mix" boxes of "Asian metric 
fasteners", "metric O-rings", stainless steel sheet metal screws, etc. 
'Cause you can get then at cheap places for $4 - $10 bucks, and if you 
use ONE piece out of the box in a pinch and it saves you a drive, it's 
paid for itself.

For all the dimensional stuff I buy from the box boxes in little bags 
for a particular job, I have a bunch of 3"x4" zip-locks from ULINE. Once 
of twice a year they all get re-bagged and a spreadsheet (available on 
request) prints out large easily readable standardized tags I cut up and 
drop in the bags. They are loosely grouped in bins like "large wood 
screws", "metric machine", "washers", etc. I have others that are just 
lose "misc SAE machine screws", "Nissan hardware", "Misc sheet metal 
screws". I can scrounge through quickly and find an exact fit if needed, 
or something close enough.

A lot of it is NOT worth keeping or sorting and just gets tossed in the 
scrap bin.

-Wayne

[email-masked]

---

From: Mark Andy <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 20 Aug 2013 10:36:33 -0400

Howdy,

I built some shelves to hold them and got a whole crapload of these type of
bins:  http://www.harborfreight.com/floor-bin-rack-with-47-bins-95736.html

(without the rack... Which any sane person would just buy and not spend
three hours making like I did.)

Then I spent about a week of "a few hours a night" sorting bolts/nuts.

That's the hard part done.  The nice thing is that with that done, its just
like going to a hardware store, without dumping a coffee can of bolts on
the ground sorting through them trying to find what you want.  MUCH nicer.

I also have a couple grab bag cans of used wood screws, used sheet metal
screws, etc.

The less fun part is being disciplined about keeping them sorted when you
add new bolts & such.  Its not bad to do if you just do it whenever you
take that handful of bolts in to keep, but if you let it build up it
becomes a little more daunting.

Mark

On Mon, Aug 19, 2013 at 12:18 AM, Wayne <[email-masked]> wrote:

> size quickly in a pinch without making a 12 mile round trip to Lowes or the
> FLAPS (assuming they're open) is a BIG time and money saver.
>
> 'Cause you can get then at cheap places for $4 - $10 bucks, and if you use
> ONE piece out of the box in a pinch and it saves you a drive, it's paid for
> itself.
>
> For all the dimensional stuff I buy from the box boxes in little bags for
> a particular job, I have a bunch of 3"x4" zip-locks from ULINE. Once of
> twice a year they all get re-bagged and a spreadsheet (available on
> screws", "metric machine", "washers", etc. I have others that are just lose
> "misc SAE machine screws", "Nissan hardware", "Misc sheet metal screws". I
> can scrounge through quickly and find an exact fit if needed, or something
> close enough.
>
> ______________________________**_________________
>
> [email-masked]
> Donate: http://www.team.net/donate.**html<http://www.team.net/donate.html>
> Unsubscribe/Manage: http://autox.team.net/mailman/**
> options/shop-talk/marka@**maracing.com<http://autox.team.net/mailman/options/shop-talk/[email-masked]>

[email-masked]

---

From: "Arvid Jedlicka" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 20 Aug 2013 10:23:57 -0500

To explore an implied part of Jeff's question ...

"and pondering buying one of those HF tumblers and polishing all my old 
hardware"

Those of you that are "recycling", what are you doing before you file them 
away ... be it into a gallon bucket or into a labeled drawer?

Arvid 

[email-masked]

---

From: John Babiarz <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 20 Aug 2013 08:45:56 -0700 (PDT)

I've done that - although avoid the HF tumbler....it will break and be a total
pain. I had one and it was a headache....very bad failure mode where the
motor
keeps trying to run but the bearing seizes so the motor gets ungodly
hot. Not
good for a device that you want to turn on and leave unattended
for hours
(days) on end.... 

I bought a good one at BassPro - it is much better built
and has lasted WAY 

longer so far. I have done a bunch of containers of hw
and the come out great. 

I use walnut shells as the media that is sold as
animal cage litter at Petco (or 

your choice of pet store). Much, much
cheaper than the same thing from a 

sporting goods store or even HF.
However, be prepared - you will be picking the shells out of the heads of the
screws when you are done. I had a small awl I used to dig the shells out. It
can be time-consuming but it is worth it. I had a lot of old bolts and screws
that were very well made, unlike a lot of newer stuff. Also, I hope you have
someplace detached from your house to run the thing in - they are noisy.
Luckily, my garage is detached so it runs out there. Even with the heavy wood
doors closed, you can hear it doing its thing from 10 ft away from the
building.
Since it will need to run at least overnight, it won't be popular
with the missus
if you try running it in the basement. YMMV but these have
been my experiences
with the thing.

BTW - the good unit I got at BassPro was
<$100. Cabelas also sells similar (or maybe
even the same) unit. Be aware of
size of the bowl - if you have long items, they may
not fit (once you get to
9"-10" or so). All this said, I'd still say go for it. Those polishers
are
pretty handy for other things. I cleaned up some old hand tools that were
rusted
horribly and they look great now. You'll be amazed at what a good job
it can do. Just
don't overload it....

Good luck.
John
>________________________________
> From: Arvid Jedlicka <[email-masked]>
>To: Shop Talk List <[email-masked]> 
>Sent: Tuesday, August 20,
2013 11:23 AM
>Subject: Re: [Shop-talk] Nuts and Bolts
> 
>
>To explore an
implied part of Jeff's question ...
>
>Those of you that are
"recycling", what are you doing before you file them 
>Arvid
http://autox.team.net/mailman/options/shop-talk/[email-masked]
_______________________________________________

[email-masked]

---

From: Mark Andy <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 20 Aug 2013 12:23:15 -0400

Howdy,

I don't do anything.  If the bolt is mechanically messed up, then I toss
it.  If its not, it goes into the bin.

I'll clean it up if I reuse it.

Mark

On Tue, Aug 20, 2013 at 11:23 AM, Arvid Jedlicka <[email-masked]> wrote:

> Arvid ______________________________**_________________
>
> [email-masked]

[email-masked]