On Sep 13, 1:03*pm, Smitty Two wrote:
In article ,





*aemeijers wrote:
Smitty Two wrote:
In article ,
*Nate Nagel wrote:

I've pretty much given up on finding any
metric stainless hardware locally

Really? If you live in a city large enough to support a half dozen
machine shops, I'd be surprised if there wasn't a tool and hardware
store dedicated to serving them. It'll be on a dead-end side street in
the industrial part of town. They'll have 100 or 1000 times the hardware
that your average big box has, but of course you'll have to go talk to
the guy at the counter to get it, because it won't be in little plastic
bags hanging on a customer-accessible pegboard.

They have those around here. Open 0700-1600, M-F. Which is fine for
their main customers- Joe Blow civilian buying 20 bucks a year is at
best a nuisance to them anyway. You gotta know exactly what you want
when you walk in, though. Vendors to the trade may tolerate retail
customers, but no hand-holding is offered.

True. But Nate asked about metric stainless. That specificity alone
makes me think he probably knows exactly what he wants. Besides, how
useful is the "hand-holding" you get at the big box?

heh. true dat.

Current strategy has been to simply buy the longest fully-threaded
screws in the sizes that I need (generally either M5 or M6, button
head or socket head) from McM-C and cut to length when fitting. Works
OK, so long as you have a set of dies to clean up the threads after
cutting. So theoretically all I need to "stock" is four different cap
screws, two sizes of washers, and two sizes of nylocs, and that takes
care of 90% of my bicycle accessory fitting needs.

What'd be really helpful, if I were doing this professionally and not
as a hobby, would be if someone made a screw cutter for M5x0.8 and
M6x1.0 kind of like the ones that are built into some crimp tools.
but for all the more I need to do this a hacksaw, file, and die works
fine.

But then there's weird stuff like pedal threads (9/16" but neither NC
or NF, and the left side is left hand thread) and derailleur hanger
bolts (I think 10mm, but not a pitch that is in my standard tap and
die set...)

nate