Happiness is a Box of Screws
When I was growing up, we had a neighbor who was quite mechanically inclined. If he didn’t have a lawnmower disassembled and strewn across his shop, then his car hood was up and the engine was in parts.
He had a most impressive coffee can — one of the really large ones — that was completely full of random screws, nuts, bolts, washers, and other random fasteners. And he used it often. At the time, I couldn’t understand how taking something apart and putting it back together with no modification beyond cleaning might require additional fasteners.
In the intervening 25 years, I have reassembled my share of computers, mowers, pinball machines, and other random bits of hardware. It always seems that some random screw is either lost, missing, or simply needs to be replaced.
Whereas my neighbor collected his fasteners over 50+ years of collecting parts wherever he might find them, I took a short cut. I bought 4 scoops ($2) of random fasteners from Weird Stuff. And I have already used a half dozen parts in the 4 hours of pinball maintenance I did today.
I think I’ll get more. Can’t have enough random fasteners.
And the photos make for some really nice desktop images.
I have already used a half dozen of these to replace various random stripped, destroyed, or lost screws from the Cyclone.
December 30th, 2005 at 12:44 am
My dad has a steel box full of fasteners, which once held an assortment of Van Houten chocolates, about fifty years ago or so. My random fasteners are all over the place, in desk drawers and the like. I really should consolidate them.
-jcr
December 30th, 2005 at 4:38 pm
Cool! Drop me an email and I’ll send you a thread gauge.
http://www.boltdepot.com/thread-gauges.aspx
- Matt
- Bolt Depot
(Edited the 3 down to 1).
January 16th, 2006 at 11:44 pm
[...] The kind folks at BoltDepot.com sent me a set of their thread gauges in response to my article about my amazing screw oriented fastener acquisition. Thank you! [...]
October 10th, 2007 at 12:52 pm
[...] monopod. Nearly the cheapest — since I’m in Missouri, I didn’t have access to my box of screws and, thus, this thing ran me about 62 [...]
January 12th, 2008 at 3:00 pm
[...] course, I also have specialized everything drawers in my garage. My screw drawer, for example. And my allen wrench drawer. Or the drawer that contains 12 lbs of bottle openers and [...]
March 3rd, 2008 at 10:30 am
As you may expect I believe in a place for everything and everything in its place. But one thiing Ive learned no matter how well organised and how many screws I have. When I’m looking for one in paricular - I can never find it - sods law!!
August 6th, 2008 at 10:22 am
I have an absolutely huge jar full of random screws - but then I work for a fastener company so am constantly getting useful bits for free.
My wife keeps telling me to get rid of the jar but I’ve grown rather attached to it, I think I’ve got one of just about every type of fastener somewhere!
And I agree with Jimmy - even with all the ones I’ve got I’m always scratching my head bemoaning that I can’t find something!