Bury nuts in fiberglass

Tim Wescott · 2015-06-05T22:04:29+00:00

I'm looking for product names to look for. I'm working on an instrument for a customer, and he's having me do the whole-system design. This means I'm out of my comfort zone and playing with mechanical issues. It needs a big outer case (well, four feet long, by nine inches by two). I'm thinking of doing the outer case from fiberglass for a number of reasons, not least of which because I'm familiar with its characteristics, and the instrument is going to be used on or near bodies of water including salt water. I'll need to attach things to this outer case. My current thinking is to used buried studs and/or nuts, and use thumb-nuts and thumb-screws to actually attach the bits. I'm assuming I want to use brass or stainless hardware for corrosion resistance, and I probably want to take some pains to match alloys. McMaster is failing me for appropriate hardware. I'm finding thumbscrews and thumb-nuts, but I'm not coming up with good candidates for nuts that I can bury in the fiberglass. I'm assuming that the case will be a two- part assembly that's glued together; nuts that can be buried in one side and then captured in the gluing-up process seem to be the best notion to me, but if someone with actual experience has alternate suggestions, I'll listen (I may not _take_ your suggestion, but I'll certainly _listen_ and _think_ about it). So -- suggestions? I'm probably wanting some 4-40 or 6-32-ish sized ones, and some 10-24 (or 1/4-20). The bigger ones may work better as studs, with thumb nuts. I'm pretty sure that I want nuts for the little ones, unless that presents severe difficulties.

Jun 05, 2015 23 Replies

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Tim Wescott 11 years ago

Sorry for snapping at you.

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Tim Wescott 11 years ago

Yes. Apologies tendered to John.

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Tim Wescott 11 years ago

I don't feel that PVC will be strong enough -- I want something that'll withstand multiple drops from waist height.

I'm hiring out the messy and nasty parts!

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Dan 11 years ago

Water jet or laser cut parts from a 0.25 in thick sheet of Lexan or commercial fiberglass sheet One can design in alignment features, internal PCB board mounts. connecter holes and holes for tread inserts.

Glue the it together with acrylic adhesive.

I have used this for a couple of projects. They came out very nice.

First one I used 1/8 P&O steel. We call it the Iron Amp but it been going strong for 15 years.

Dan

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