On Fri, 05 Jun 2015 17:04:29 -0500, Tim Wescott wrote:

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.

Your responses made it clear that I left out an important part: the case
will be made with two or three fiberglass bits, glued together and
finished. I'm envisioning the fasteners going into the top piece, then
getting captured by the bottom piece, or perhaps some inner third piece.



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www.wescottdesign.com