If you're wanting to stock your workshop with a supply of various nuts/bolts/washers etc. for future projects, does anyone have any recommendations? I've checked some online bulk fastener suppliers and then compared those prices to the local hardware store. Retail on small 100 or 50 count boxes seems quite expensive in comparison. What do you guys do? Buy bulk then split the purchase and the price? Or is there a middle ground so you don't have to buy 1000 bolts to get a decent price?
I buy at rural king. $3.99-5.99/pound depending on what grade you want, color coded by grade, and a bigger selection than Lowe's depot.
I just fill bags up with nuts bolts and washers by size.
I took apart a couple of Miatas :)
Seriously, now I have a full selection of high quality metric fasteners, some with cool paint colors on them. Spend a bit of time sorting and it's super-convenient.
I’ve not been buying big quantities, but McMaster Carr has been hard to beat for selection and price.
+1 for McMaster Carr. Shipping isn't free but I generally get my order next day.
I just went to Tractor Supply based on recommendations, and their selection sucked. They had almost nothing in metric, and even though they did have grade 8 SAE bolts, they were all mixed up and they didn't have much variety.
Keith Tanner said:I took apart a couple of Miatas :)
Seriously, now I have a full selection of high quality metric fasteners, some with cool paint colors on them. Spend a bit of time sorting and it's super-convenient.
That's what fed the vast majority of my supply of nuts and bolts. Available in green, white or red (in my garage)!
As long as we're on this subject, I'll hijack my own thread. What assortment of bolt sizes would you recommend starting with, both Metric and SAE?
Keith Tanner said:I took apart a couple of Miatas :)
Seriously, now I have a full selection of high quality metric fasteners, some with cool paint colors on them. Spend a bit of time sorting and it's super-convenient.
I do find myself digging through the buckets of bolts I've acquired through the years to find what I need. My collection could use more organization. More often than not, I'm successful. If I have a specific need for just a few pieces that I don't have, I'll let the local hardware store charge me an arm and a leg. For larger quantities, I've used the local Fastenal.
Rural King has tons including metric in multiple grades and fine thread sae stuff in bulk.
stroker said:As long as we're on this subject, I'll hijack my own thread. What assortment of bolt sizes would you recommend starting with, both Metric and SAE?
What are you working on? That will define what you want.
There's basically three flavors of Metric, depending on if the car is Japanese, German/Swedish, or American. British and French are full of weird stuff you can't find in the US and I have no Italian experience.
And most American is the same, except Ford had a fetish for using fine thread everywhere because they could save on lockwashers.
While working for the local O'Reilly I found out about a company called Disco Automotive. I know, awesome name right? Well they sell bagged fasteners. Usually 50-100 pieces a bag. And they're actually pretty cheap. Never seen a bag more than 8 bucks or so and it's all sorts of stuff. I usually get the flange head nuts and washered bolts in metric. m6 m8 and m10 are my go to for fab stuff because that's what most of my cars use. It's almost all OE replacement hardware. They also sell funky trim clips, rivets and those weird christmas tree fasteners as well.
In reply to iansane :
Are those stocked at O'reilly? That sounds like a good resource.
1988RedT2 said:Keith Tanner said:I took apart a couple of Miatas :)
Seriously, now I have a full selection of high quality metric fasteners, some with cool paint colors on them. Spend a bit of time sorting and it's super-convenient.
I do find myself digging through the buckets of bolts I've acquired through the years to find what I need. My collection could use more organization. More often than not, I'm successful. If I have a specific need for just a few pieces that I don't have, I'll let the local hardware store charge me an arm and a leg. For larger quantities, I've used the local Fastenal.
Mine's separated into things like 6x1 long bolts, 6x1 short bolts, 6x1 nuts. The main sorting goes pretty quickly because other than a few specialized fasteners, there tend to be a lot of common sizes. Almost every one is a 6x1, 8x1.25, 10x1.25 or 10x1.5. And you'll get every second of that time spent sorting back when you're actually doing things.
I also have a thread restorer kit in case things are a little crunchy, but in our neck of the woods that's fairly rare.
I have a few cars worth of fasteners which is really nice and I've sorted them a bit using small tackle boxes. Do you have any photos of how you've got them sorted? When I've got a more permanent garage space I'd like to have better fastener sorting.
No photos, but most of them are in those normal grids of drawers like these. I label them with sharpies so I don't have to play the "is it THIS drawer?" game.
I also have a few of these which I mostly use for house fasteners (screws, anchors, etc) because I don't need my nuts and bolts to be portable, but they're pretty handy. Mine are a name brand (Stanley?) that lets you arrange the "walls" in different configurations but HF sells this knockoff.
Later I'll post a pic of the FM Wall 'o Fasteners, it's a wonderful thing...
On the serious scale. We've shut down the FM salvage operation, but this stuff is still gold. This is the main wall, but there are several worktop size ones as well.
Since we specialize, we've gone a little further than just nuts and bolts.
Even if you're not scrapping cars, next time you're at the junkyard just grab as many fasteners as you can.
In reply to Keith Tanner :
VWAG bolts with the green coating are phenomenal... I keep telling myself that onea these days, I'm going to go nuts at a junkyard and just grab 50lb of M8s and M6s.
Keith Tanner said:On the serious scale. We've shut down the FM salvage operation, but this stuff is still gold. This is the main wall, but there are several worktop size ones as well.
Since we specialize, we've gone a little further than just nuts and bolts.
Oooh that looks even better than the card catalogs I've been trying to get my hand on
I use rural King for some bolts and nuts but years ago I worked in a place that assembled motorcycles and saved alot of crate bolts, saddle bag bolts and other random motorcycle and atv stuff. For the longest time every project car I had ended up with 6mm Allen heads used almost everywhere because they were plentiful in my buckets of bolts
For quick needs, I'll use home depot. They have a surprising selection.
Fastenal is the bomb for local shopping for anything oddball you need, but sometimes they don't have the really oddball stuff in stock. In those cases it's best to order it online and either have them ship it to you or your local store.
+1000 for McMaster Carr. I use them almost exclusively for the theater because they have actual rated hardware that lists all the physical properties of their hardware. I know they'll have what I need for anything, it will be safe to rig for flying, and it's quality stuff.
I also use Amazon for a lot of general fasteners. I needed some eye nuts for tie-down points on my truck. They needed to be functional and I didn't care that they were made in China, but they were rated for some crazy 15,000 lb tensile strength. I figured if they were actually only good for a tenth of that force, they would still be 5 times more than I needed to strap in a cooler or a dirt bike.
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