In 40 years as a toolmaker....

[Johnny Come Lately Name]

I have worked with SAE threads - coarse, fine, extra fine, left hand.....pipe threads.....metric threads....hell, I even made left hand pipe threads once. I have never used or seen a #12-24 thread.

Guess what size the good folks at Weber grills use to hold their burner tubes in place? ? Of course I butchered the heads up a bit getting them out - they’ve been in the grill through thousands of heat/cool cycles. Of course Blowes has no #12 screws whatsoever.

Well, they’re 1/4-20 now. ?

[donkpow]

4 minutes ago, F_in Ray Of Sunshine said:

Well, they’re 1/4-20 now.

Great. Now a crescent wrench will fit. Good job. 

[maddmaxx ★]

I was lucky to be able to reuse my screws for the Weber a couple of weeks ago.  While I was bundling up all the packing material for the trash a shiny plastic ziploc bag fell out with new screws.  

[Ralphie ★]

6 minutes ago, F_in Ray Of Sunshine said:

I have never used or seen a #12-24 thread.

#10-24 sounds familiar from my karting days.

[Wilbur ★]

Who needs a toolmaker when Charcoal is cheap.  Load that puppy up! 

[Johnny Come Lately Name]

28 minutes ago, RalphWaldoMooseworth said:

#10-24 sounds familiar from my karting days.

#10-24 or #10-32 are very common. #6-32 and #8-32 as well. #5-40 and #4-40 or 48 are pretty common, as well. 

Above #10 screws, almost everyone on the planet jumps to 1/4”. 

Not Weber.

[a bunch of numbers]

Lowe's must be the only hardware store in NY.  You go there a lot. We have a couple no-name hardware stores that are family owned.  They're awesome.  But... Home Depot is right around the corner from me, so I end up there more often.

[Johnny Come Lately Name]

13 minutes ago, Rick5234 said:

Lowe's must be the only hardware store in NY.  You go there a lot. We have a couple no-name hardware stores that are family owned.  They're awesome.  But... Home Depot is right around the corner from me, so I end up there more often.

I do a lot of work on my house and they're only 3 miles away. (I also forget stuff and/or only buy what I need at the moment, since it’s no big deal to go back. (Plus Gus likes to go there - he gets treated like a rockstar).

There’s a “Do It Best” right in town and I sometimes go there (but their hours can be screwy).

For actual building materials, there’s a lumberyard right next door to where I used to work. They frequently beat Lowe’s on price and if I want to talk to someone who actually knows something - even “Unbriacco” *-  I go there. All my siding and decking and doors came from there. I’ve needed a few special favors and they’ve come through.

 

 

*We went there first thing on a Saturday morning to look at a patio door. After talking to the guy who was there for about a half hour, when we walked out, SO said “Jesus Christ...I need a chaser”. I think he came straight from whatever barroom table he’d slept under the night before...? But he knew what he was talking about. (“Unbriacco” is Italian for “drunk” and is now his nickname.)

[Page Turner]

...one of the advantages to living in a crime infested, traffic choked, low quality of life major California city is the nearby industrial fasteners store.

[Longjohn ★]

If Lowe’s doesn’t carry them you’re probably stuck with getting screws at Ace. Ace is the place unless you still have a real hardware store.

[jdc2000]

https://www.boltdepot.com/Machine_screws_Phillips_pan_head_Stainless_steel_18-8_12-24.aspx

 

[maddmaxx ★]

McMaster Carr.

[Johnny Come Lately Name]

1 hour ago, jdc2000 said:

https://www.boltdepot.com/Machine_screws_Phillips_pan_head_Stainless_steel_18-8_12-24.aspx

 

 

1 hour ago, maddmaxx said:

McMaster Carr.

Yeah, I know I can get them, but I wanted to finish the damned thing today. So I did.

[Parr8hed]

[MickinMD ★]

The position and composition of screws, nuts, and bolts are too often designed so most people need to get an "official" repairman to fix minor problems.

In one case, a standard bolt had it's head shrunk to fit an outdoor awning where wind had broken a part loose and replacements cost $15 each. Fortunately, I have a small metal lathe and was able to make some from bolts with normal-sized heads.

I ran a thread here about a year ago about my license plates being stolen and one of the problems was trying to find bolts to hold the new plates on. I was lucky a sympathetic guy at the parts shop of my local Honda Fit dealer told me what to look for and Home Depot didn't carry it but luckily Lowes did.

On my last car, a side-view mirror on my Ford Taurus was broken - probably accidentally by kids playing in the street, and the Ford dealer wanted something like $300 to fix it. I found the OEM replacement on eBay for something like $50, popped-off the interior upholstery on the door, only to find that there were three nuts holding the mirror unit on and one was hidden behind a wide strip of metal bracing inside the door where ordinary tools could not reach. There was NO logical reason for the 3rd nut to be there.  Fortunately I have a brother-in-law with tons of tools including a gooseneck wrench that we used to replace the mirror.