A Decent Screw!

[mlv]

Does anyone know where I can buy some traditional #12 x 2.1/2" zinc-plated steel c/sunk woodscrews?

Everyone (and I do mean everyone) seems to only stock these fancy hardened, twin-threaded, gold-plated, reduced shank, pozi-headed, etc. screws that may be just wonderful for screwing into wood, but are (IMHO) quite inadequate when used with plastic wallplugs. They simply don't give the firm, reliable grip of the traditional woodscrew and seem rather prone to ripping the centre out of the wallplug.

I've tried all the obvious suppliers without success and I guess I now need to find an old-fashioned hardware shop that still closes on a Wednesday afternoon.

Brass and stainless steel c/sunk woodscrews still come in the traditional design, but brass would be too likely to shear off and I can't source any #12 x 2.1/2" in stainless steel.

I only need 20 of them!

Thanks

[Andrew Gabriel]

If you're anywhere near Fleet, Hampshire, then Bakers in the main shopping road (Fleet Road) is one of the few left. Just don't come on a Wednesday afternoon (and I'm not joking;-)

[usenet]

I've got hundreds of ScrewFix Goldscrews and Turbogold screws (both of the type you seem to dislike) in plastic plugs all around my house and my experience is that they seem to stay in better than old fashioned tapered screws.

I find that I tend to use slightly smaller drills than recommended for the plugs and slightly smaller plugs than most other people seem to use. I now use far more yellow plugs than red and rarely use the bigger ones at all.

I drill 4.5mm holes for yellow plugs, sometimes you can get away with

4mm, it depends on the type of wall you're drilling into. The plugs should be easy to just tap into the hole.

I then use 3.5mm or 4mm screws in the yellow plugs and, as I said, have had no problems at all with their security.

I really can't imagine what I'd want to fix with big plastic plugs.

Even one of those monitor shelves on a flexible arm is only fixed with red plugs and 5mm screws and seems perfectly sound even with a heavyish monitor on it.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Then you're using the wrong wall plugs, or wrong sized drill.

[Andy Hall]

Do they have one of those systems with wires across the ceiling with little pots carrying the money to the cashier?

[Christian McArdle]

I use 5mm or 6mm screws into brown plugs myself, drilled with a 6.5mm SDS bit. The yellow plugs scare me for anothing bigger than holding up a paper calendar. If I'm doing anything heavy, like kitchen cupboards, then I go for the full rawlbolt.

Why do you go for the smaller rawlplugs? It's not like screws or plugs are expensive.

Christian.

[Andrew Gabriel]

No -- there's too much merchandise hanging from the ceiling for one of those to work. They do add up the cost of the items using paper and pencil though -- I can't recall there being a till in the shop, or at least if there is, it isn't used for adding up the totals.

[Lobster]

I'm guessing you live in a modern house with solid brickwork and maybe sand-cement render on the internal walls?!

I hardly ever use yellow plugs, simply because they aren't deep enough to get through the half-inch layer of powdery plaster which was applied about a century ago, and wouldn't take any sort of weight whatsoever.

David

[Andy Hall]

I haven't seen one for years. When I was a kid, all the shoe shops had them.

Probably a wooden drawer under the counter......

[Andrew Gabriel]

The V&A had a moch-up of a shop some years back, probably based on 1920's, with a working one of these. Pull a cord, and the cannister was pinged across the ceiling on a cable. As a kid, I recall a number of the stores in Reading using vacuum tubes with cylindrical canisters, which took your money to the cashier, and returned the change. Modern versions of these are still used in supermarkets and the like for carrying excess cash back from the tills, but not for individual customer transactions.

[mlv]

I'm mounting some (very) heavy duty TV wall brackets. The screws and plugs came with the brackets, as did the drilling/fixing instructions.

The wallplugs were those awful flimsy grey things, mostly hollow and with little sticky-out prongs. Internal walls are breeze (clinker) block with cement render.

My initial instinct (which I should have followed) was to bin the grey wallplugs and use the superior brown Unifix plugs. However, I decided to use the supplied plugs and screws. The holes were drilled exactly as instructed and the screws where tightened........... well that's the problem, they never actually achieved tight.

Certainly, if I had drilled a hole smaller than was specified and hammered the plugs home, then the screws would have gripped better.

Much better however, would be to use a system I know works well: Unifix plastic wallplugs and traditional woodscrews.

[Owain]

"Andy Hall" wrote | Andrew Gabriel wrote: | >> Do they have one of those systems with wires across the ceiling | >> with little pots carrying the money to the cashier? | >No -- there's too much merchandise hanging from the ceiling | >for one of those to work. | I haven't seen one for years. When I was a kid, all the shoe | shops had them.

I can remember the shoe shop used when I was little having a cuckoo-clock, which fascinated me greatly and meant that shoe-buying trips had to be synchronised to the hour :-)

| > They do add up the cost of the items | >using paper and pencil though -- I can't recall there being a | >till in the shop, or at least if there is, it isn't used for | >adding up the totals.

They'll have problems recruiting staff under 40 with that skill. I expect they have to convert to decimal every time they find a really old box of something in t'back still priced at £4 19s 6d. (Paying cash sir? We'll drop the odd farthing then.)

Owain

[Christian McArdle]

I don't think I have ever used screws and plugs that came with something. They are almost by definition, utterly unusable.

Indeed, but you can use moderns screws, too. The failure in the supplied parts was because they were bought by the manufacturer for 0.0000000001p and they got what they paid for.

Christian.

[Rob Morley]

I'd be inclined to use resin bonded fixings for high stress applications in soft blockwork. Or maybe use a sheet of ply to spread the load and get extra fixings into the wall.

[John Flax]

I remember those wire things when I was young and think I saw one at the Welsh Folk Museum, St Fagans, near Cardiff. It's a fabulous day out for old fogies and their grandchildren. The Museum of Welsh Life is located 4 miles west of Cardiff City Centre, just off the A4232. Signposted from junction 33 of the M4 motorway, with direct access from the A4232.

Although there is plenty to see indoors it would be better to save it for next year.

Admission: Free!

[Dave Plowman (News)]

I've broken or chewed up the slot on two many mild steel traditional woodscrews to ever want to use them again - except where the traditional look may be better.

Also, a pozidriv is safer - not the same chance of the screwdriver slipping.

[Andy Hall]

Yep. These replaced the corded ones which were also used in some of the clothing shops.

B&Q seems to have them in some branches.

[usenet]

Because almost everything I fix uses 3.5 or 4mm screws and these hold best in 4mm plugs in my experience. You can hang a heck of a lot of weight on just a single 4mm screw. A quick calculation suggests that a 4mm screw's tensile breaking strain will be almost a ton (probably more than a ton if it's stronger than mild steel), so the screw isn't going to break with any remotely normal load on it. I find that yellow plugs with 4mm screws are just about immovable.

[usenet]

Well push them further in then! There's no requirement that the plug has to be flush with the surface. Or you can put two plugs in if using really long screws.

My 'standard' screw tends to to a 4 x 40mm, that's pretty similar to an 8 x 1.5" but a bit longer. If there's half an inch of plaster then a yellow plug will nestle neatly down below the plaster.

As it happens my house was built in the 1920s.

[usenet]

I nearly always don't use the supplied screws and plugs. They are often rather poor quality and too short.

Ah, breeze block can be difficult. I'd just go for extra long 5mm screws for this sort of weight on it.

I guess that's where we both are, we're familiar with a particular pairing of wallplug and screw that works well. It makes sense to stay using that and not to use plugs supplied simply because one will be better at working with the familiar ones.

I have a big 'trade case' of TurbGold screws so I always have the 'right' screw for virtually any application. It cost £50 or so but I've never regretted buying it, it saves so much time finding screws for this job and that job over the years. I'm replacing ones that I run out of with stainless steel ones now.