Where have all the bolts gone?

[Spout]

Where oh where can you buy bolts these days?

Why ain't there no such thing as a hardware shop any more?
I'm sure there used to be a shop at the end of every street that sold all sorts of bolts, didn't there?

All I'm after is one M8 x 20mm (any head - don't care!).

Had to settle for three M8 x 25mm ("they only come in packs of three sir" and a bit of hacksawing.

Well seven hacksaw blades later I'm halfway through


Into the vice and a tap with the hammer, that'll get the bugger. I'm now on the look out for replacement jaws for the vice.

So, new search tomorrow for M8 (any old length) mild steel bolts.

Any ideas where to look? (Prefer the counter/cash thing rather than t'internet)

 

[(RIP) Jamie]

You're not wrong there.

When I lived in Dagenham there was a HUGE hardware shop called A.Cooke and Son.

They had everything the metal bender could want - even being virtually next door to a B&Q wouldn't put them out of business.

You could go in with anything, they'd glance at it, and come back with a match. They all wore brown overalls, and even the spotty 'erbert's knew what they were doing, and if they didn't, they'd tell you.

There was also to price structures, No reciept needed, no VAT paid.

Happy days.

No good to you though, what with living in Marple

 

[adamski49]

Mackays in Cambridge is a brilliant place for these sort of things... not much good to you up in Stockport. Have you tried yellow pages?

Adam

 

[oblertone]

fork 'andles

The famous fork 'andles sketch was based on a hardware shop in Doncaster called Butler's, endless procession of blokes in brown coats who knew their business. Now sadly gone to the land of the bubble pack !

 

[GEOFFREY DEACON]

Ile say just one thing,=Screwfix-Direct..

 

[firestarter]

Have you tried Maplin Electronics?

Just at the top of Hillgate, on the A6.

 

[Roge]

Where oh where can you buy bolts these days?

Why ain't there no such thing as a hardware shop any more?
I'm sure there used to be a shop at the end of every street that sold all sorts of bolts, didn't there?

All I'm after is one M8 x 20mm (any head - don't care!).

Had to settle for three M8 x 25mm ("they only come in packs of three sir" and a bit of hacksawing.

Well seven hacksaw blades later I'm halfway through


Into the vice and a tap with the hammer, that'll get the bugger. I'm now on the look out for replacement jaws for the vice.

So, new search tomorrow for M8 (any old length) mild steel bolts.




Any ideas where to look? (Prefer the counter/cash thing rather than t'internet)

Try looking in yellow pages under fasteners they normally do for commercial but in my experience they normally have stufff from "damaged boxes of *00s" and will give you the odd handfull

 

[JohnnyBoxer]

Any autojumble/bike has plenty of fastner stalls.
Rufforth @ York on Sat this week.
We also have Ripon Engineering Ltd in Ripon, which sell all types of fastners/tools etc.............so pretty lucky up here

 

[Spout]

Sorted!

Found a 20mm M8 holding the Adv crash bar cross brace on. Swapped it for one of the 25mm.

So now I can stock up on assorted bolts at leisure.

Still mourning the demise of the handy hardware store – for those ‘emergency’ situations.


Cheers .........

 

[Possu]

Bolt & Bearing are about 50 metres from me at work. They stock everything I've needed.

Biggest bonus is that they recently had their first stock check in 15 years. The result was that they THREW out everything that did not want. Yours truly was on hand to rescue what he could. This involved a bit of dump diving but was worth it. In the end I ended up with 440kg (yes 440) of assorted & mainly metric fasteners. all in common pitch sizes.

I've given away about 200kg to friends & family, the rest is mine. There's so much of it that I have to store it at work, no room in the garage. There's at least one other, possibly two businesses in Oxford that stock a huge range of fasteners. If it's not in stock, they'll order it in.

Steve