About the Smooth Rods

Hi guys,

I live in Brazil, and I can't find the 8mm smooth rods anywhere down here... the 8mm threaded rods I found alright, but the smooth ones are really mission impossible...

I found this math some where on the forum:

Between 8mm and 5/16 inch is actually 0.0625 mm. It is 0.00246 inches smaller, or about 2 1/2 thousands of an inch. To keep perspective, a piece of paper is about 5 thousands thick.

So I am wondering if anyone on the forum have used the 5/16 inch smooth rods?

Can I use them?

Thanks,

Antonio Santos

Yes you can use them, as most of the bearings sets are adjustable and 2.5thou is nothing to worry about.

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Two bearings can be pulled together (Around 3:25).

Thanks a lot Guys!

Interesting, I didn't realize that imperial hardware would be easier to find than metric in Brazil.

jbayless: Here in Australia, it's all over the place, so I'm not surprised it's like it is in Brazil.

eg: In large hardware chains here, most of the straight/threaded rod available is imperial. If you go looking though, you can find some decent places to buy metric stuff, though they're usually used to dealing with companies than the average person off the street, so it pays to know what you're looking for and talking about.

Bunnings have galvanised threaded 8mm bar suitable for the frame members. The galvanising is good quality and smooth, gal nuts don't bind on it, and the studding is 1.2m in length, so only 5 lengths are needed. At $5.75 a length, pretty economical. I bought drawn smooth bar from a stainless supplier. Not ground, but straightness was within .2mm over the axis travel, diameter and smoothness regular enough to satify the bearing trucks. I paid about $12 a metre. Some cars have gas struts with 8mm ground rod to keep bonnets and hatches open, so wrecking yards or panelbeaters could be a source that hasn't been widely explored.

murrayd: They didn't have any 8mm at all when I went there (tried 4 stores), and the amount of metric fasteners they do have is woeful (and expensive) compared to the imperial.

That said, I found a place in QLD that does 304 grade steel threaded rod for about $7 per metre. Was a heck of a lot cheaper than Bunnings for 304 (about $25 per metre from memory). As an added bonus, it was straight, unlike the stuff at Bunnings that everyone had picked up and played with.

In my case, I found most of the places I bought stuff locally by driving through some of the more industrial areas of Melbourne, noting down names and then looking them up on the net or calling them on the phone.

Cefiar, my experience is in Sydney, so I guess there's some variation in distribution. But you're right, metric is pretty widely available from industrial suppliers, and they do seem to be more common than elsewhere, if the comments from builders in other parts of the world are anything to go by.

Here in Brisbane.... I ( and the local Hackerspace ) used RS components for the BZP metric threaded rod ( Bunnings Galvanized stuff was the backup plan, as it was often too bent at my local Bunnings). for the Steel Rod, we also went with Imperial Stainless Rod ( 7.96mm Vs 8mm is definitely close enough in this case).

here's our progress as at two weeks ago:
[picasaweb.google.com.au]

Buzz.