Gene Kearns wrote:
Personal favorites..... self locking nuts (elastic or all metal),
cotter pins, and safety wire.

If you use the self-locking nuts with plastic insert, you know you're
supposed to get a new one every time you take it off? And you're not
supposed to exceed a certain amount of excess thread? Other than that,
they're great...

As for the metal ones, the reason they work is by chewing into the
thread. The are either squashed out of round and then remachined to fit
the wrench size, or else cut slightly off standard. Either way you
have metal on metal galling as the lock mechanism.

But hey, I'm not trying to say there's anything wrong with that
Just explaining my own personal fetishes. Double nuts are a PITA to work
with. Locking wire is good when tight space, balance, or alignment isn't
an issue.


basskisser wrote:
Pretty much correct, except, even with a quite large bolt and nut bin,
I usually get tired of hunting after a few seconds, and head for the
hardware store anyway! One day, I hope to need a bolt, and actually
find the right one in my bucket!

This is a prime example of what a friend of mine calls our society's
pathological impatience. It would be quicker & cheaper to keep your
fasteners organized better, and even if you didn't you could find the
right one quicker than you can drive to the store (assuming it's really
there). What's the frikken hurry?

A story- once upon a time, my family lived on a rural property with a
barn. My father and I rapidly filled the barn with sports car & boat
parts, including several 55gal drums of various threaded fasteners from
many many sources. We would brag that there was at least one of
everything in there. It just so happened that I was rebuilding a 1966
Porsche engine in the barn and needed a very special bolt (left hand
custom thread with a long shank for the rocker bearing cover). I could
send off to Porsche Germany, which I had already done in the course of
this job, or hunt through the barrels.

I kicked over the first barrel and hunted through every single bolt in
it (a freind helped). No. We kicked over the second barrel, and about
3/4 of the way through we found two of the exact bolts, taped together
and still coated in cosmoline. A few months later I sold the second one
(which I had placed on our mantelpiece) to our local Porsche shop when
he needed one. I often wonder if anybody has been looking in those
barrels for that exact bolt since then....

Fair skies
Doug King