How To Avoid Breaking Spanner Bits

Avoid Breaking Spanner Bits

Broken Spanner Bit

The spanner drive style is still an uncommon drive style for most people to just have lying around.

This uncommon bit makes screws more resistant to tampering and removal without the proper bit. Due to this, a spanner bit is often referred to as a “tamper-proof” or “security” bit.

The Problem With Spanner Bits

As great as spanner “snake eye” bits are for adding security to an assembly, they also have some downfalls. Spanner bits are made to fit a very specific drive size. If they are used with the wrong size it becomes increasingly likely that the bit will break.

Spanner bits are also more prone to snapping than any other bit type. The spanner bit has two prongs that are inserted into two holes in the head of the screw. Pressure is then directly applied to only those two prongs (across a very small area) which causes the screw to turn. Other bits can have as many as six sides pushing on the head making it less likely that they will break by spreading the load across multiple points of contact.

Spanner bits are commonly avoided for this reason but there are actually a few easy steps you can take to avoid most of the common reasons spanners break.

Steps To Avoid Breaking Spanner Bits

Always Pre-Drill Into Hardwood

Hardwood can be particularly difficult for screws to cut into. We recommend pre-drilling a pilot hole even when the screw has a self-drilling tip. Pre-drilling a hole removes much of the wood that would be in the way and allows a screw to more easily install.

Avoid Coming To A Hard Stop

Drilling into knots or using a screw that is too long where it can hit metal on the back of the installation surface can cause the screw to seize in place. This sudden seizure will place all of the pressure upon the bit prongs and more than likely cause them to snap.

Avoid Over-Installation (Over-Torquing) Of The Screw

When installing the screw, make sure to stop once the head reaches the installation material. Attempting to screw the fastener in further will increase the amount of torque required to turn the screw dramatically.

Watch As Bob demonstrates this with one of our own spanner bits.

*No spanner bit regardless of quality will stay in tact if you do not take care when installing spanner drive screws. It’s the nature of the bit design.

DIY Magnetic Sockets – Save Time – Don’t Drop Your Bolts!

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DIY Magnetic Sockets

Socket Extension With Magnet Attached

Are you trying to install a fastener in a hard to reach area? Constantly dropping bolts when you go to tighten them?

We’ve all played the balancing game of trying to keep a bolt in a socket while we turn it over only to have it fall out of the socket and into the depths of you engine bay never to be seen again. We sat down (in frustration) with our fastener expert Bob and he gave us a quick tip on how to avoid this issue in most situations.

What You’ll Need

Crazy Glue
A Small Round Magnet
Socket Wrench Extension

How It Works

Take the socket wrench extension and place the magnet on top. Make sure the magnet, when seated in the middle of the extension allows the socket to still slide over the top and connect. At this point you have one of two options:

Use this as a temporary solution so you can remove the magnet once completed
Remove the magnet, coat the bottom in crazy glue and reapply it to the extension, creating a permanent solution.

Using It

Now that your magnet is installed, all you need to do is choose the right socket for your bolt and place it on the extension. Slide the bolt into the socket and the magnet will grab the bolt. On some metals such as plain steel, the magnet should grip the bolt firmly, On stainless steels (which are all partially magnetic) there should be a light grip, but unfortunately on non-magnetic materials such as aluminum there still isn’t grip. These bolts are still going to be a pain for all of us.

Aside from non-magnetic fasteners, the only other time this fix will not work is when the extension is too long. Often, there is little space where the bolt needs to be installed so adding the extension to the wrench will make this task unlikely if not impossible to complete.

Conclusion

Overall, this easy and cheap trick can save us all a lot of time, searching for bolts that never hit the floor but seemingly vanish from existence and the frustration of dropping a bolt repeatedly. If you have a spare socket extension or a few bucks lying around, give this a try and let us know how it works out for you.

How To Replace A Utility Box Cutter Knife Blade

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How To Replace A Utility Box Cutter Knife Blade

The box cutter, or utility knife, is an excellent tool found in almost every warehouse. Designed with a small blade, these knives have the ability to quickly cut cardboard boxes open, remove packing tape and other wrappings used in freight transit. Due to the abuse box cutters take, they are often made from very hard plastic or metal.

Many warehouse employees view utility knives as throwaway items. As soon as the blades wear out warehouse workers will typically begin looking for a new one. Fortunately, you’re company does not need to waste money repeatedly buying new box cutters every week. A simple remedy is just to replace the blade. And the best part? They normally come with extras!

Opening The Utility Knife

The first step when replacing a box cutter blade is to figure out how it opens. In our example, we only need to use a Phillips head screwdriver and remove one screw from the side. After removing the screw you can simply pop the top off which splits the knife in half.

Identifying Components

There are really only five components to our utility knife. The handle, the screw, the blade, the blade housing and the pack of replacement blades. Once the blade has been opened, we can remove the blade housing and blade from the knife.

Identifying the box cutter components

Make sure when you reach this point you pay attention to how the knife sits in the housing. After noting this you can remove the knife from the housing and dispose of it safely.

Replacing Blades

The replacement blades are normally wrapped in a little pack. They often come in sets of between three and five. You will want to carefully remove these blades from the knife Finding the extra blades in the utility knife handle so you do not cut yourself. Then unwrap the blades and remove one from the package. After you have a new one out, place the other blades back into the handle.

Now take the new blade and seat it into the housing the same way the old one came out. The blades in this knife have a two notch system which needs to get placed correctly back into the housing. This creates a nice firm hold on the blade.

Putting The Box Cutter Back Together

At this point, we will want to start reassembling the box cutter. Place the blade and housing back into the handle, ensure that the extra blades are seated properly and then place the top of the handle back onto the bottom. Then fasten the screw back into place and your utility knife is as good as new.

Checking for any design in the blade of a box cutter to ensure it is seated properly.

*When fastening the screw back into place you want to make sure to snug the screw but not over-tighten it. If you over-tighten the screw it will compress the handle and seize up the blades movement in the handle. To mitigate this, tighten and then check by opening and closing the box cutter a few times to make sure it is at a comfortable resistance to opening and closing.

Our Thoughts

We are using a standard metal box cutter in our example but many blades work in the same or a very similar fashion. Utilizing these blades will end up saving your company a fortune in the long run. Make sure you educate employees on the extra blades (if available) or have an employee who can change them readily available to change blades out for the other employees. The type of box cutter we used, after spending about five minutes on it the first time, we were able to change a blade in about two minutes. Making it significantly cheaper to have someone change the blades than to just buy more.

Replacing a Utility Knife & Box Cutter Blade

Utility/Box Cutter Blade Replacement Transcript

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Bob: Welcome back to Albany County Fasteners – Fasteners 101. Today I want to show you how to properly change a blade in a utility knife. Lets get started.

So I have my utility knife here. This is just a standard utility knife. This is like a five dollar utility knife. You can get more expensive utility knives, unless you’re a contractor or or one of those guys that are using it professionally every day, this will do. This is a very simple unit.

Now I’m going to show you how to change the blade properly you need a number two Phillips and we get out of my case here. OK and i’m just going to unscrew this Phillips screw right here.

I’m gonna take that out. Remove the screw and then you just pop this top off. This whole mechanism comes out of the utility knife, like a casing, and then in the back, typically in the back of the utility knife itself, they give you a little package of additional blades. In this case they give you four extra ones.

So you take the blade out of there, you take the mechanism that it snaps into. So now, there are two holes. There’s only one you can get it into alright, so two slots they see those two slots you can only get it into one and that’s the only way will fit. It should fit snug in there, you shouldn’t get a blade that is sloppy and moves around and it should just fit perfectly as I’m showing you here.

Once you have that, you can just slide this, put it back in there, but the key to this is pushing this down so it will slide back and forth. Now when you put the top on, there’s a lot of people running into this problem. If they don’t put that in properly it won’t adjust for you and then this is like a hinge you just snap it in like that.

Before you put the screw, when you start screwing it, make sure that you have rotation; that it’s sliding back and forth for you. Put the screw back in, just snug the screw, don’t over tighten it, I just tighten it. I just tighten it till it stopped.

There you can see that it was free. A lot of times people over tighten this, put all their muscle into it and then in this case it’s not happening but in some utility knives it will not function properly.

There you go. Thanks for watching.

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How To Properly Cut, Deburr And Chamfer Threaded Stud

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How To Properly Cut, Deburr and Chamfer Threaded Stud

Many projects use threaded rod, also commonly called all thread, for hanging and stabilizing structures or objects. The biggest problem is that often, you can only find it in specific lengths that may not be suitable for your project. This means you will need to cut, deburr and chamfer the all-thread down to size.

To cut threaded rod down to the size you need is fairly simple but can leave some nasty burring on the end of the stud making it hard to fasten a nut onto. We sat down with our fastener expert and asked him how to cut clean threaded studs from a long bar of threaded rod.

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Cutting

The first thing to do is measure your threaded rod to length. After you have measured and marked your threaded stud, insert it into your chop saw. Some chop saws (like the evolution industrial chop saw) have a small vise for holding the material being cut, in this case all thread, in place while keeping your hands at a safe distance. Simply bring the saw down and cut through the threaded rod.

*There are two kinds of blades primarily used in chop saws. The first which we are using in our evolution chop saw is known as a cold cutting blade. This means that the blade cuts with virtually no sparks. The second kind is the old school abrasive cutting blade. We tested this process on both kinds of blades below and have found that the cold cutting blade has significantly less burring than the abrasive style blade.

The abrasive saw also generates significantly more heat which can make the threaded rod hot to the touch so wear gloves. The cold cutting blade reduces this increase in temperature significantly. Still wear gloves for safety!

Abrasive Vs Cold Cutting Chop Saw Blades

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Deburring

Now that you have a piece of threaded rod cut down to size, the next step is to remove and burring caused by cutting the rod, to do this you will need a grinder. Simply, take the threaded stud you cut and press the end against the grinding wheel to remove the burrs and smooth out the cut end.

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Chamfering

Chamfering is the process of removing the end of the threading and cutting an angle into it. Chamfering is done to clean up the start of threads so a nut can be easily fastened to the rod. To perform this process we use a tool called the Uniburr. A Uniburr is a cone shaped tool that attaches to a drill and quickly chamfers away the edges of a fastener.

Nice Work!

Now that you have cut, deburred and chamfered your threaded stud, the only thing left to do is go use it!

What Size Drill Bit Do I Use To Drill A Hole For A Carriage Bolt?

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What Size Drill Bit Do I Use To Drill A Hole For A Carriage Bolt?

carriage bolt drill size

A common question we get when discussing carriage bolts is “What size drill bit do I use to drill a hole for a carriage bolt?” The answer is simple. Use the same size drill bit as the diameter of the bolt. If you are using a 1/2″ diameter bolt use a 1/2″ drill bit.

Installing A Carriage Bolt

Carriage bolts are very misunderstood and yet very simple to install. Made primarily for wood, carriage bolts have a square shoulder right below the head. This shoulder is designed to catch on wood and be pulled into it (by tightening the nut). Often you will find the domed head of a carriage bolt countersunk into the wood. To learn how to make a countersunk hole carriage bolt in wood you can check out this video we made: How To Drill A Countersunk Pilot Hole.

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Step One

The first thing to do when installing a carriage bolt is to determine the diameter of your carriage bolt. After you figure out the diameter with a thread gauge or other measuring tool, find a wood drill bit with the same diameter and then get your drill ready.

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Step Two

Now that you have your drill bit, mark the wood and drill out the hole. Depending on the type of wood drill bit you use to make the hole, the carriage bolt may slide right into the hole or be very tight. If it is very tight grab a hammer and tap the rounded head of the bolt so it slides into the hole. *Pro Tip: Since you already have the hammer out, once the hammering in a carriage bolt square shoulder gets down to the wood give it a couple solid hits, so the square portion begins to sink into the wood.

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Step Three

Take a washer and nut and fasten them to the carriage bolt against the wood. As you tighten the nut against the washer, it will pull the square shoulder into the wood preventing it from spinning. Once the domed head of the carriage bolt is tight against the wood the carriage bolt is installed.

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Conclusion

Carriage bolts are surprisingly simple to understand and yet many people still struggle with them. Hopefully this post will help you to understand which size tightening a carriage bolt drill bit you will need and how to install a carriage bolt into wood.