Square Nuts and Bolts

I have drawn a blank looking for suppliers of small square nuts and bolts 7 to 10 BA or metric equivalent so will have to make my own.Any guidance and advice on best way forward would be appreciated

John Millis

Hi there, John,

If you're going to make a large number all of the same size AND if you have collets for your lathe, it might be worth investing in a square collet.

Alternatively, four-jaw self-centering chucks do turn up on eBay now and again.

A tailstock turret and a sliding die holder will help with the bolts while a nut tap (standard length thread plus a long shank) will help with the nuts.

All of that assumes that you're going to use square stock of a standard size; if you have to machine standard square stock to a non-standard size, then I guess you'd need a mill or a shaper?

Best regards,

Swarf, Mostly!

A few of teh German model engineering suppliers do sq headed fixings, I'll see if I can dig out a link. They are usually metric or metric fine.

You may well end up having to make your own, usually easiest to start with round, turn the screw/bolt shank and thread then over to the mill and into a spin indexer to cut the square. When I do this I have 2 or 3 bits of metal on the go and work both ends so you end up machining in batches of six.

J

John,

If you can [eventually] find Square Nuts in quantity, then it may be worth making the Bolts by fixing lengths of Studding, using Loctite Retainer. ... You can easily tidy-up any protruding end.

MichaelG.

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Edit: one possible source

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 19/07/2015 15:56:18

Square model size nuts here

For smaller sized nuts - there was an article in ME (do not have the details to hand) from someone who modelled wooden farm carts and who needed large quantities of small scale (square) nuts in their production.

His solution was to punch them out of brass sheet and then thread them in a small tapping jig. The punch was guided by the tapping sized holes he pre-drilled in rows in the sheet before the punching operation. A relatively small sheet could yield quite a few nuts using this method and would probably be as quick (if not quicker) than machining rod square and then tapping & parting off etc. I've looked at various methods of making small scale nuts for my Gauge '3' railway wagons and this seems to be the most promising approach, although I haven't tried it myself yet.

Another member of the G3 Society also had some brass etches made of various scale-sized Whitworth nuts that were also very good. This could be another possibility where smaller scale nuts are required for cosmetic purposes.

I'm currently using quite a few 14BA nuts in my wagon modelling, which are not quite right scale wise (although they can pass the "6ft away" test) and they are also getting pretty expensive these days...

Regards,

IanT

Home made square nuts are quite easy to make it is the deburring etc that takes the time. Drill and tap square stock to a reasonable depth and part off, repetition .........repetition........... repetition

Square headed bolts and screws (carriage screws) take a little longer.