Looking for a source of 3/4" & 1" long bolts & nuts

[Ljohnsaw]

So my timber frame is going up and the engineer specified the use of bolts to hold a number of the lower braces internal to the cabin.  I need 18 (eighteen) ¾" bolts 12" long and 18 (eighteen) 1" bolts 20" long along with 2 washers and one nut for each.  The bolts can only have 2" - 2.5" of thread.  I was hoping to use All-Thread but the engineer says there must be 4" of non-threaded in each wood contact (4" brace, 4" beam/post).

I called Portland Bolt this afternoon and he needs to check on Monday if have 12" bolts with only 2" of thread - normally they have 6".  The 20" bolts can have 6" without issue.  He quoted me $670 delivered

McMasters must be gold plated.  Fastener Superstore is pretty pricey as well.  Wholesale Bolts is decent but doesn't have the 1" in the length I need, but the washers and nuts are priced good.  They only sell in units of 25.  Anything else out there?

[Barebuttminer]

Hex bolts, Hot dipped galvanized steel, 1"-8 x 20" - Bolt Depot

[Barebuttminer]

Hex bolts, Hot dipped galvanized steel, 3/4"-10 x 12" - Bolt Depot

[doc henderson]

ask the engineer if you can over bore the timbers and use a bushing (pipe or tube) over the threads inside the brace and beam.

[Ljohnsaw]

BBM, I'm not a fan of hot dipped bolts.  The threads are just sloppy to allow for the random amount of zinc coating.  I just don't trust them to not strip out.

Portland Bolt has a pretty neat process (lots of videos) where they dip (soak) the bolts in molten zinc then put them in a centrifuge to spin off the excess zinc.  You end up with some pretty nice bolts that can use standard nuts.  Waiting on the quote tomorrow but will probably go with them for the 1" bolts.

Wholesale Bolts has grade 5 zinc ¾"-10 x 12" bolts for $146/25 so I will probably go with those.  I dug around in my shop and found 24 of the 36 washers I need and all the nuts so some savings there.  I don't have any washers or nuts for the 1", however.  

I need to see if my engineer will let me use SAE washers on the 1" bolts.  They are only 2" outside diameter rather than the 2½" that USS washers are.  I need to counter bore the braces to get a flat surface for the bolts to sit on and I have 2" but no 2½" Forstner bits.  I also don't want to make 2½" holes in my 4" brace stock!

[scsmith42]

I need to see if my engineer will let me use SAE washers on the 1" bolts.  They are only 2" outside diameter rather than the 2½" that USS washers are.  I need to counter bore the braces to get a flat surface for the bolts to sit on and I have 2" but no 2½" Forstner bits.  I also don't want to make 2½" holes in my 4" brace stock!

Have you considered bridge washers?  To me they look pretty cool.


 

[low_48]

Ask the engineer if you can drive in a piece of steel pipe and then a 1/2" diameter bolt. Also ask if Acme thread, all thread rod would work.

[Ljohnsaw]

I assumed something early on and the engineer didn't catch and correct me.  I assumed I needed grade 5 when I only needed grade 2.  So, that opened up a lot of options.  I ordered (in two orders) both the ¾" and 1" bolts spending about $500 instead of $2k for the custom bolts.

[Don P]

Good deal.
A couple of tidbits I do know on fasteners. Allthread or fully threaded fasteners cannot be substituted for a machine bolt. I got "busted" for using carriage bolts structurally on a deck. The threaded portion does not have the shear strength needed.
Second, when I'm tempted to "ask the engineer" something I remember what he gets paid for, answering my questions. If I neglected to think of the right questions in the first round it is rarely cost effective for me to turn on the meter and start over.

One thought the bridge washers kicked off in my head but is not worthit here to open up another round of engineering, more for others to think about in a higher capacity bolted connection is shear plates or split rings hidden in the joint. They have considerably higher shear capacity than a bolt alone. The bolt holds the joint together, the large diameter of the shear plate or split ring transfers and distributes the shear to more wood.

[Ljohnsaw]

I do like the bridge washer and the engineer was good with them, but with a 1" hole in the bridge washer, the outer diameter is gonna be huge - too big, IMO, for the 4x brace stock and would look out of place.  On the 10x16 beam they would look great, however.

[peakbagger]

I had a project in a pulp mill I worked in about 20 years ago. There were new owners and they had overbudgeted for the work and rather than using the money elsewhere I was told to make it a showpiece. One thing I decided to do was go with real cadmium plated nuts and bolts for all the piping. Real cadmium hardware was military spec for years and pretty well the best thing except that when its plated the process is potentially toxic  and when its scrapped the cadmium is toxic waste so most firms have gone with cheaper arguably less effective solutions. I needed lots of custom lengths due to types of valves I was using (this was 4" diameter to 20" diameter Van Stone type flange Stainless steel pipe). I ordered up custom lengths needed and then paid a big premium for cadmium  plated. They came and were like little works of art. Nice uniform flat gray, looked like pewter.  Unfortunately the crews were used to grabbing bolts from a barrel and cutting them if they were long so it took some training and assigning a guy to fill plastic bags of the right lengths for each joint. Some of these were 1 -1/4" diameter and they could be snugged up by hand. 

The finished result looked great and I managed to eat up the surplus;). For the 18 months it ran, it was great system. Unfortunately the new owners, Fraser Papers, had made bad assumptions on the financials for the plant and closed the place then sold it to be scrapped and 130 acres got scrapped in less than a year. But the system looked nice while it lasted.  :-\ 

[Ljohnsaw]

Got my first package today - half of the 20" x 1" bolts (ten of them).  Box pretty busted up.  I don't think the UPS folks liked the little package that weighed in at 44 pounds!

[Tacotodd]

Kind of like the time that I ordered 1000 projectiles that weighed 56 pounds, but they never busted.