Securing a gate . . .

[Jimk]

It was an e.g. ....

GIYF

[Jimk]

Shear nuts & bolts?

E.g.

[RJH]

Having just had a neighbour's break-in (keys to car stolen, nothing else), and caught on camera several quite open casing-the-joint forays into our between the houses passageway (my Audi's next, apparently), we've just had a metal gate fitted. It's fine, quite substantial.

However, the latch and hinges are fitted with easy to remove hex nuts (fixing the adjustable screw hinge) and bolts (holding the latch and hinge pins to the brick wall).

I'd drop a spot of weld to the various bits if I had the kit and skill - but I don't. Any recommendations for a supplier and type of secure nuts and bolts? They don't have to be the last word in security - really, the padlockable latch isn't that secure.

Cheers, Rob

[Jeff Layman]

As well as dealing with securing the hex nuts, maybe consider something like this to offer another visible and effective deterrent:

[tabbypurr]

[RJH]

Thanks - seen those, but they don't seem to supply retail, only via a web form. And I'm curious about the torque at which the head snaps off. My experience of bolting stuff to the brick of these houses hasn't been too promising - so if it does need to be tightened *tight* they might not work.

Cheers, Rob

[RJH]

Thanks - drilling out the head of a large pozi screw would seem to be a crude but effective solution . . .

Cheers, Rob

[Brian Gaff (Sofa 2)]

Most of the crooks around here are either after the catalytic converters or just getting the electronic codes to open the cars and filch anything inside. Brian

[RJH]

Yes, perhaps I should. Irony being my car is pretty much the least valuable on the street (2007 Audi S3) . . .

[nightjar]

This is a job for the uk.d-i-y angle grinder. Use it to take the corners off the nuts and bolts, so that a spanner can't grip them. You can use it again if you ever need to remove them.

Alternatively, should you want to be able to use a spanner on them yourself, drill through one of the flats on the nuts and through the bits the bolts pass through. Tap the holes and fit pointed hex socket grub screws to grip the threads.

[Chris Green]

Wonderful, until the inevitable time when *you* want to remove it.

[Chris Green]

So can anyone else.

[Caecilius]

Loctite red on the threads?

[Andrew]

Then you can drill it out, on that rare occasion when you might have to. The crims won't bother to try anyway. If they want to get through it then they'll use brute force if they think that would do it.

[Andrew]

Use bolts that need an allen key to tighten, then fill the hex recess with something that sets quite hard.

[Thomas Prufer]

I have a grate secured with Torx screws, a round head like the head of a coach bolt, only with a regular Torx recess. These came with small aluminum slugs that one is to hammer into the recess. I touched up the head with zinc paint, and the slug is not longer apparent.

I had to remove the screw screw, and gently drilling out the aluminum middle, and then picking out the bits in the grooves is possible, given time, patience, and the knowledge of the ally slug. Thieves would likely have none of the above...

Recessed hex would work just as well, I think.

Thomas Prufer

[nothanks]

If the bad guys have a battery angle grinder then they can go through most things quite quickly (albeit noisily). I lost a padlock key recently and it took much less than a minute to cut through the staple. Could you use a different style of lock, rather than a padlock? Alternatively, shipping containers have a hardened steel cover over the lock, which is completely inside the cover - search for "lock box".

[nightjar]

Noisier than undoing them with a spanner though.

[jon lopgel]

Not hard to use a screw extractor.

[jon lopgel]

But would attract considerable attention to themselves when doing that and there are clearly surveillance cameras there.