Foreign Fasteners

[BigBoy1]

I had to drill and tap a bunch of blind holes for 8-32x3/4" socket head cap screws. Since I didn't have the cap screws I needed, I bought a box of new ones locally. The drilling and tapping went just fine. When I tried to screw the cap screws into the holes, they acted like they were too big. In fact, that was their problem! I had to run each brand new cap screw through the 8-32 die to remove just a sliver of metal so that the screws would fit into the holes. Once each cap screw was run through the die, they worked just fine. I looked at the box the cap screws came in and on the bottom in very fine print was, "Contents may be made in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, USA or other countries." At 25 cents per screw, one would think you would get a quality product, not one that you have to rework to make it fit. It wasn't worth taking them back to argue with an unknowning sales girl at the return counter. She wouldn't have a clue what I would be talking about and she would just exchange the unused ones for more of the same. I guess from now on I have to order what I need and not use local suppliers so that I can specify what I need.

Bill

[Fasttrack]

Were they galvanized? I've run across that with Homedepot's hot dipped galvanized hardware. Seems like they make the bolt to specs before dropping in a bath of zinc. After the zinc coating they are too big to fit in a threaded hole - by the time you screw it in all the zinc plating has been scraped off...

[Tin Falcon]

BB1:
Yeesh you can get that size from enco for less than 5 bucks for a box of 100. They are usualy import but sometimes you luck out and get american made. the import is korea or tiawan. the quality has been good for me and I have not seen chines fasteners yet. they are usualy brighton-best brand. I like to by local when I can but most of the time they have screws for 20 to 40 cents each and do not offer box pricing.
Tin

[jim davies]

Just had the same problem except with #10s. The mic tells me there is
about .005" diameter diff between old stock and new. The old ones were
smaller...the new ones were KBC brown box.

[BigBoy1]

The screws were not galvanized but had the black finish. Perhaps there were to spec. before the coating was added because after I ran them through the die, they came out silver.

Bill