Cost of hardware (rant)

How often does the typical Ace customer buy bolts? They are in a hurry and have no idea what a bolt should cost. Their time is worth more than chasing around looking for a deal.

When I had a service station (yeah, we really pumped your gas) I made more money on fuses and bulbs than oil and filters. Everyone knew what oil should sell for. Then, you could clear a quarter on a quart but 40 cents on a fuse.

--Andy Asberry--

------Texas-----

My friend Buz puts his random hardware in a cafeteria tray. He mounts the trays in a box with saw cuts for sliders. Makes it pretty easy to sort hardware.

Steve

Good source for large metric bolts too. Greg

Fastenal 3 inch 1/2 - 13 bolt grade 8 plain finish is $.70. Not sure just where you are, but a search on their web site shows 39 locations in Oregon.

Dan

Sorry that I got the diameter wrong. A 3 inch 9/16th grade 8 plain finish is $1.04. Dan

McMaster has them cheaper...

Yet, "acebolt" does *not* have their prices online.

...

I'm pretty good at sorting on sight (been doing it for 45 years 8-) ). But recently the occurrence of metric stuff has been creeping up and it drives me crazy. Some SAE and metric sizes are just too close. When I have to check the pitch it just isn't worth it and my recycling has been cut way back.

Bob

Ivan Vegvary wrote in article ...

coffee-can's

Garage sale hardware may be cheap, but if you get into ANY sort of critical fastener usage - automobiles, machinery, etc. - and you have a fastener failure, how do you get documentation for the garage sale hardware?

If a car crashes, causes injury - or worse, and the inevitable lawsuit comes, you had better used brand-name hardware with full certification.

There's just too much counterfeit stuff out there these days.

Weld it down if you have a welder.

Gunner wrote in article ...

The only problem I would have with the "street corner" storefront vendors would be the likelihood of some un-certifiable Chinese stuff being sold....especially on the coast where the Asisn stuff lands in this country.

Just because it has six radial marks on the bolt head, it doesn't necessarily mean it is truly a Grade 8 fastener these days.

China is under no international obligation whatsoever to make sure that ONLY certifiable Grade 5, Garde 8, etc. hardware receives the markings of Grade 5, Grade 8, etc.

If they so choose - and they have chosen in the past - they could mark cast bolts with Grade 8 markings without violating any international law whatsoever.

If you are in a situation requiring the use of graded hardware, simply ask your vendor for the certification paperwork to CYA.

If he cannot or will not, then you are, most likely, the one who will be at fault when the lawsuit comes.

Try murphyjunk.com in San Diego This guy has almost every concievable size of bolt and nut and many are aircraft grade. He ships also lots of cool stuff

True enough. For certified stuff, or life safety stuff..having the certs is simple common sense.

However..most of us dont have that need most of the time.

I bought 100 10-32 x 1/2" Stainless steel button head capscrews yesterday. $4.80 out the door, tax included. I wanted black oxide..but they were out. Shrug

Gunner

Political Correctness

A doctrine fostered by a delusional, illogical liberal minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.

I went to their web site and did a location search. Bam!They have a store within a few blocks of my house! This is amazing because I have to drive 40 miles for almost everything commercial or industrial.

Ron Thompson On the Beautiful Florida Space Coast, right beside the Kennedy Space Center, USA