[TheForge] Re: Black fasteners (Was: Drawer Pulls...)

[Mike Spencer]

> I'd like to broaden the topic a bit and ask about sources for
> uncoated (I beleive the industry term is "self-colored") hardware in
> general.

Years ago, maybe late 70s, I went into my favorite, Old Time
Stocks-Everything industrial supply (now sadly defunct) where the guy
behind the counter was taking small items out of a bucket one at a
time, drying them with a rag and dropping them into another bucket.

He said, "Can I [plink] help you? [plink]"

I asked for somethig, he went off to get it and, as soon as he got
back to the counter, began again: plink....plink....plink.

I now saw that the "small items"  were flathead wood scews, maybe #6x3/4".
Hadda ask, "Why are you doing that?"

"The Navy Yard [plink] ordered 10 gross [plink] of black screws
[plink] and the Navy [plink] insists on [plink] getting exactly what
[plink] thay ask for. We [plink] only had plated screws so [plink] we
soaked them in muriatic [plink] acid."

I never found out if the Navy's "black" -- probably conceived as
phosphated black finish -- and Moir's acid-dipped, hand-dried finish
matched up on delivery. :-)

I can get phosphated black fasteners from a place in Halifax that
specializes in fasteners only.  When I asked for 10 flathead, 1/2" x
1-1/2", UNC, black bolts with a hex-socket head, they fetched them
from the warehouse promptly and without comment.  Pretty good for a
place with single orders waiting for the truck that filled a couple of
pallets.  But they're 75 miles away in the middle of a heavily
trafficed commercial neighborhood.  My local hardware store has
plated, hot-dipped and stainless fasteners by the each or by the pound
(which pretty good, now that I think of it) but no phosphate-black
ones except carpet tacks.

Maybe you can find a specialty house like that under "fasteners" in
the yellow pages?


- Mike

Michael Spencer                  Nova Scotia, Canada       .~. 
                                                           /V\ 
mspencer at tallships.ca                                     /( )\
http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/                        ^^-^^