Loose mechanical bits n bobs

I've been hunting around for a few things, and having some difficulty in finding them.

I did find a pot of fire cement, available from Mitre10 Mega, though I have easy access to kapton tape at work.

What I am having trouble in finding is,
8mm dia solid rod
Various screws and bolts not usually sold by hardware stores like M5 x 50 bolts

Where would be a good place to go to get these in Auckland?

Any luck when you check "Auckland Fasteners"
[www.google.ca]
and
"Auckland Construction Steel"
[maps.google.ca]
and the local yellow pages?

Nope, they all show fastenings larger than M6, and nothing came up about rods.

I did do another search as "Socket Cap Screw", and while I did find a place that sells M5 x 50 screws, I didn't find any detals as to how far up the shaft the threads go, and they don't sell M8 rods
[www.micometals.co.nz]

You can substitute 5/16" rod for M8.

Also, you may want to make direct email/phone/person queries; some industrial suppliers aren't completely online yet.

Try EDL Fasteners for most of that sort of stuff [www.nutsandbolts.co.nz]

For the solid rod I used Aluminium rod from Ulrich [www.ullrich-aluminium.co.nz] 7.94mm Can be cut to order, comes as 5000mm rods (I got 2x2m and 1x1m). It may be too flexible, it looks solid enough in the Darwin configuration but I haven't had it actually printing yet.

For completeness the other places I got stuff from other than the RepRap online stores were Dick Smith Electronics, PBTech (odd computer parts), Mitre 10, Placemakers, Wilson Bros, KMart and lastly Carrs - [www.carrgroup.co.nz] - specifically for the feedstock

I tried to limit myself to chain stores so I could help others in NZ/Aus with just this sort of thing :-)

Cheers guys, I found that MicoMetals don't have M8 rod but they do have 5/16, and with tolerances so close to M8, its good enough.

I've looked at EDL a number of times, and they just don't stock bolts (preferably cap head) smaller than M6. Does Ullrich Aluminum sell M5 or smaller bolts/screws.

One problem I have is that I got Vik to print out a set of bits for a Tamiya extruder, big problem with his design is that its very very hard to find M5 x 50 bolts with thread going down the whole shaft

This I think is the best place to get screws from, anyone here have much dealings with them?
[www.anzor.co.nz]


Today, after work I nicked an M5 x 50 Cap hex bolt, and die tapped the whole thread, then chopped off the head of the bolt, after a bit of cleaning (may need to borrow the die tap again), plonked on a couple of washers and a few nuts with an M5 x 10 grub screw, (all taken from work, as my work place has a number of bolts/screws/nuts for prototyping), but I realize that not everyone has such easy access to these things, there must be an easier way to do it.


What i'm thinking of is either making the recess at the end deeper, longer and further away, that a cap hex head bolt (not hex head) can fit un-modified.

or

Get an M5 bottom tap, and tap the cap hex head bolts' head to fit a grub screw in (this I can look more closely at at work tomorrow, in my own time of course)

Someone I know with experience in DIY building and repairing stuff told me it's usually better to go to an engineering supply store then a fastening specialist. Fastening people are fine, if you need thousands of them but for odds and ends an engineering supply store is more like to have what you need. You could try ringing around a few and see if they have what you want?

So far the best place I have found is MicoMetals, i've never used them but they seem to have mostly everything, after I read their fastenings catalog they state they have M5 x 50 cap head bolts, I think Vik must use them for getting the 8mm SS rod, and maybe the threaded rod too.

I decided to go up to MicoMetals, to get something, and found out that they have a minimum order of $50 for metal, which would have been ok if they hadn't said that they have separated out their fasteners to somewhere down the road (couldn't find it), to make it more confusing I also asked them if I could at least have just the one invoice for both the metal and the fasteners and pick them up from the other place, alas they don't do that.

The 4m length of SS306 round rod was priced at $37.40 excl gst

Any suggestions on getting over this hump of a problem?

Just had a thought, seeing as I will need to break that $50 threshold, i'm wondering what would be a cost effective metal to use as garden stakes, you heard me correctly, garden stakes.
I'm thinking that angled aluminium would be the best.