Gallery, Projects and General > How do I??

T-Nuts

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Darren:
I need some T-Nuts, I could buy some but every machine I have has different sizes. That could start to add up.

Commercial types are heat treated. Firstly is this necessary and secondly if so can it be done easily at home.
I guess it can, is ordinary steel OK or does it need to be a certain spec for heat treating?

Rog02:
Darren:

I make a lot of T-nuts as needed for different set ups.  Generally, I just use whatever is in the scrap bin.  Heat treating is not really required.  1018 steel is fine. 

Bernd:
I'm with Rog on this. Make them out of any kind of steel. No reason for heat treating. I think they heat treat them so they don't wear out in industrial work.

Bernd

bogstandard:
Darren,

Just as Rog says.

Don't be tempted to use standard bolt heads or nuts, they don't spread the load enough.

Also, make sure you deform the threads on the bottom of the nut so that the holding bolt or stud can't go all the way thru. I have seen table slots damaged because people tightened too much on the bolt, and it acts like a screw jack, and bursts the t-slots out in severe cases.

My offerings about this subject were rebuked on another site, so they are running around taking their life in their own hands. They have most probably never seen a chunk of table pulled out because of the hi loading pressure on just the corner of a hex head nut or bolt. Under certain hi loading conditions, they can fail with the speed of a bullet. Talk about the blind leading the blind.

I usually just buy the quantity of high tensile t-nuts and studs that I require. Doing it that way, I know that each piece of equipment is fastened down with good quality fixings, all machined and altered to the correct length for each bolt down part. Then the standard clamping set is only used for one off setups. Next time you call, remind me and I will let you have a few left over from my old shop machines that I never got around to using. You might be able to use them on one or two of your machines.

John

John Stevenson:
Darren,
Just as others have said just make them up.

I usually make a stick up to suit the slots and then throw this into the clamping drawer ready to be cut up and tapped to suit whatever.
Even though you may have a 1,000 nuts you still meed those extra two specials at short notice.

.

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