0 and 1BA Stainless Steel hexagons

Hi All, I wish to make a couple of 0BA special bolts, about 2ins long, in stainless steel. The only supplier of 0.423 A/F stainless bar stock I can find on the web only sells 1m minimum length @ £20.73, and charges £18.50 minimum postage. This would mean each bolt costs 20 quid! Does anyone out there know of someone who can supply short lengths of 0 and 1BA stainless hex at reasonable prices? I have tried e-bay, M Metals and MK Metals to no avail.

I could make up bolts using 6mm rounds and nuts (I have some 0BA stainless nuts from BA Bolts) cutting a short thread at one end and using epoxy adhesive to secure the 'head', and possibly hammering the protruding end over then facing off on my lathe, but I would prefer to do the job properly.

As you say in the last paragraph and silver solder the nuts in place.

Hi Speedy Builder5, a good suggestion but alas I do not have the equipment or knowledge to silver solder. I read an article about soft soldering stainless, is that any good?

Turn from round stock and machine hex head, not too much work as you say you only have a couple to make

Worth check out Keatley Metals link

H

Use 10mm af, I won't tell anyone if you don't

Duncan, I have a obsessively pedantic approach to mixing imperial and metric - I know it would be easier but it would always niggle me!

Don't think of it as 10mm but 0.394". There you go, it's imperial.

Not so Andrew! An obsessive pedant would cheerfully pay £20 per bolt! Trying to cut costs is a dead giveaway: it proves you're a practical man at heart. Don't deny it, embrace the dark side.

Dave

Edited By SillyOldDuffer on 11/12/2021 11:11:19

6thou for a spanner isn't going to matter - 0.400" which gives a suitably random 2/5

Used a lot of metric 3.2 mm pop rivets recently, but drilled the holes for them with 1/8" drill. I regularly mix / interchange between metric / imperial measurement.

Silver solder that size you can do on the gas stove, small kits on auction site will give you plenty for about £9, probably cheaper than buying hex bar. Make sure you get a kit for stainless steel, which can also be used on steel, brass, copper

I would go with Jason’s suggestion of machining the hexagon on a round bar, I have made quite a few custom fasteners for motorcycles and even used the degree markings on a swivel base vice to mill the hexagons, even a careful filing job can work ok and for a couple of bolts not to much of a drudge task. As I now have a hexagonal ER collet block this makes the job very easy on the mill. A filing rest for the lathe can produce the flats very quickly and accurately especially if you can index the chuck. Depending on what equipment you have or can borrow and a bit of lateral thinking will get the job done.

Mike

But BA is a fundamentally metric thread. 0ba is 6mm OD, 1mm pitch and the rest are a geometric progression.

And according to 2 sources on the interweb, the head size is 10.5 mm, which is 0.413"

Dunca, you are absolutely right that the correct hex size for 0BA is 0.413 ins - finger problem on mobile phone keypad! I have decided to mill the heads and have just turned a piece of 1/2 in stainless to 0.477 in preparation to setting up the milling slide on my Super 7 this evening. Thanks all for your suggestions.

Of course, my finger trouble shows why I try to avoid mixing metric and imperial - my fingers were made in 1952 and are thus firmly imperial, so when I use them on a modern metric keyboard errors creep in!

Well mine are older, but they have no difficulty with metric, believe me it's a lot easier than irrational imperial