Home Depot 1/4" Lag Screw

[Leon]

I find it less trouble to just use the correct sized pilot hole.

[The Daring Dufas]

Sounds like a store that sell adult........never mind.

TDD

[George]

Someone who forgot they weren't "talking" to their teenage friends with some form of instant messaging..

[J. Clarke]

Be careful using Grade 8. They're strong but they're also brittle. Don't use them for applications where there are likely to be shock loads.

[Existential Angst]

You mean, like, my BFFs?

[Existential Angst]

I thought proly was short for proberbly.

[dpb]

I don't recall who it was but McFeely's was bought by somebody and is now run as a subsidiary...I think the expanded product line outside the original focus on square-head and related wood screw products and the range of grades stems from that change; it was after that the catalogs started to grow in size.

--

[keithw86]

Screws?

[JustTom]

Same here, and TS sells their hardware by the pound. It's always where I go first. I just bought a boatload of grade 2 & 5 carriage bolts, nuts, washers, etc. for around $8 ($1.99/lb). The grade 8 are a little more expensive if you need them, but not unreasonable.

I was at Lowes later for something else, so just did a quick double check to see how far off they were. Grade 1 bolts alone were nearly $15.

8 (1/2 x4) = $8.80 ($1.10 each). 4 (1/2 x6) = $6.00 ($1.50 each).

The irony is that I'm using a plan I found at Lowes.

[J. Clarke]

"Real hardware store" is too fuzzy a concept to be useful. OLD hardware store would be a better bet--one that has been around since before HD--at least that's a well defined term. OTOH, does Rocky's Ace, founded 1926, really stock better fasteners than HD? They do stock a wider range of specialty fasteners, that I'll grant them, but are their packaged fasteners really any better?

Most localities in the US have within reasonable driving distance a Fastenal. In any metropolitan area there should be a section in the Yellow Pages for "fasteners" or "screws" or "bolts". Near the water in any city with a harbor there will be marine hardware places that have a good stock of corrosion resistant fasteners--alas the packages come with a picture of a boat on them so they'll cost twice as much as the same fastener without the picture of a boat. Near any major airport there will be an aircraft hardware place--they'll have fasteners made to military specification that are very high quality, but they won't be cheap.

[Existential Angst]

My understanding is that large Mormon families buy vaseline by the pallet. Generic, of course.

[Doug Miller]

Ace. Tru-Value. Do-it-Best. Any hardware store with old wooden floors. The quality of the fasteners is markedly higher at any of those places, and the selection usually much wider, than at any of the big-box stores.

[Existential Angst]

Indeed, the mark of a good hardware store is where you CAN by stuff by the pound.

[evodawg]

You mean like Cylinder Heads?

[evodawg]

Bar soap works well tooooo.

['lektric dan]

I grew up in a small town in Southern Oklahoma. We had a "real" hardware store on Main Street. Locally owned, at least 3 generations. Everybody had gone to school with at least one of the Stolfa kids. Didn't look like much from the front. When you walked in the front door, it had one of those little "tinkle" bells on a spring at the top. Hardwood floors about 100 years old that creaked as you walked across them. You could get help, advise (and you could rely on it being accurate), or just opinions about everything from the wether to the next local or college football game. The smell varied as you walked to different parts of the store; a chemical-fertilizer smell was predominant, with paint and varnish in one corner, a greasy- oily-gasoline smell over by the lawnmowers and garden machinery. They had some of everything, nuts and bolts to gaskets for pressure cookers, I even bought asbestos sheets to fix a space heater. I asked one of the guys once if they had a molasses gate, and without a blink, he asked "what size do you need?".

Then WalMart came to town. The manager complained that the high quality cutlery he carried cost more from his distributor than the most expensive stuff WalMart carried at retail. They just couldn't compete, and when WallyWorld put in a Super Store, it was the final nail in the coffin. I really hated to see them go. This was repeated in several other locally owned businesses, from stationary stores, to small sporting goods, to auto parts. We had a family-owned auto repair shop. We finally closed after almost 20 years. The folks that bought us out made it for another 3 years.

[RicodJour]

It's very odd that you quote some> I tightened up a 1/4" lag screw that I bought from Home Depot earlier thi= s

Isn't that curious? He used a small ratchet, choked up on the handle, and drilled a pilot hole. What are you suggesting he did wrong - forget to pray?

R

[CW]

That varies from store to store. The one closest to me is quite good as for layout. What is a PIA is that parking spaces have been getting smaller and smaller.When you pull in to a parking spot, in a Subaru Impreza, and have to be careful not to hit the car next to you with your door as you get out, it's getting a bit tight. The spacing between rows is getting smaller too. In my F250, I have to park out in "no mans land". I can see the day when it will be impractical to park anything larger than a motorized skateboard.

[notbob]

Hey Range! I didn't know you could drive a nail. ;)

nb

[keithw86]

So who is to "blame"? Walmart or the consumers who demanded a cheaper knife?