What building materials you keep at home?

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What building materials you keep at home?

Postby alpha » Thu Jan 17, 2013 2:12 pm

I'm getting tired to to run to ACE, Home Depot or Lowes for fasteners. Looks like there are always out of at least one item and I have to go to multiple stores. And it looks like the prices are very high if I buy in low quantities. Well I do life in a ruale area, some may don't have this issue. So my idea was to order some common stuff and keep a little stock at home. I want to limit how often I pay shipping and handling so I'm looking for suggestion for my list. As a owner of a ShapeOko and Ord Bot I know from the BOM I need at least different M5 screws:

for sure some:
M5 Hex Nut
M3 and M5 Washer
M3 x 4mm
M3 x 8mm
M5 x 6mm
M5 x 8mm
M5 x 10mm
M5 x 12mm

maybe?
M3 x 45mm or 50mm
M5 x 16mm
M5 x 30mm
M5 x 55mm

Any other sizes you stock that may come handy?

Any other parts you think it would be good to have ready?

Thanks for your input!
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Re: What building materials you keep at home?

Postby bdring » Thu Jan 17, 2013 2:30 pm

I have hundreds of fastener bins. I have managed to avoid the use of M4 for the most part, so that helps keep the count down.

I tend to like the binder style socket head screws lately. The low profile heads helps in some situations, I don't typically use a washer with them and the large diameter head is less likely to loosen. The shallow socket makes them a little hard to apply a lot of torque with a ball end socket though.
Bart
"If you didn't build it, you will never own it."
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Re: What building materials you keep at home?

Postby roberlin » Thu Jan 17, 2013 6:53 pm

If you also want a few each of the odder sizes, don't forget boltdepot.
To avoid the binning these I took all the baggies of a given fastener class (say M3 machine screw), binder-clipped them together in order of length, and hung them by the binder-clip on my pegboard.
It has turned out to be pretty convenient.

For the ones that are worth stocking in higher quantity (like M5 8mm) I stick to the bins.
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Re: What building materials you keep at home?

Postby BenJackson » Thu Jan 17, 2013 7:15 pm

I was lucky to find these guys: http://olympiatools.com/index.php?osCsi ... 4&cPath=40 on sale at Costco. The ones I got are actually 2 drawer (but they bolt together to stack higher). They were only $30 ea and came with a bunch of SAE hardware. I consolidated the included hardware down and got lots of organizer space to work with.

As for stocking HW, I just try to buy a box of 100 even if I only need 1. If I get anything of a particular thread type I make sure I have suitable washers and nuts as well. It turns out the Discover Card cash back rewards include Ace Hardware gift cards, so I've burned through quite a few of those.
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