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One step back, one step forward.
Oct. 20th, 2010 07:13 pmLowes did indeed have brass # 8 wood screws.
I went to put them in the first thing this morning, and the very first one broke off halfway in.
To put this in context, I drove more than fifty of this exact same type of screw, into ash gunwales, when I made Patience. The first eight of them I had to back out again because I couldn't for the life of me get them to go all the way in (it turned out my combination bit didn't drill out the unthreaded part of the shaft deeply enough.) Some of them, the threads were like ruffles when I got them out--the strain had been so great the brass threads partially melted.
Not. One. Of. Them. Broke.
So I know what I'm doing with brass wood screws. Okay?
Not only did this POS cheap screw break, it broke deeply enough inside the wood that I couldn't get any kind of grip on it with my Leatherman.
I took the thwart to the hardware store, where I should have gone in the first place, and looked up my friend Steve there, who removed the broken screw for me, at the cost of drilling it out with a bigger drill bit, enlarging the hole. He also advised me to 1) drill out the deep part of the hole with a bit 1/64th inch larger than that part of the combination bit when working with hardwoods 2) use soap, not wax, on the threads of the screw and 3) drive a steel wood screw of the same size into the hole first (which I would have done if I'd had one.) He also said that all brass woodscrews were cheap Chinese crud now, so they aren't as sturdy as the ones I had when I worked on Patience.
I bought 8 of the hardware store's brass wood screws anyway, went to Lowes and returned their cheap POS screws (which I characterized politely as a "quality control problem"--and which had actually cost *more* than the hardware store screws (grrr.)) and came home, the entire morning gone.
After lunch I put in seven wood screws. None of them broke. I unclamped everything, took thwarts-plus-knees out, sanded knees, put 6 mil plastic between thwarts and knees (so as not to epoxy them together accidentally) and put all seven screws back in, filled up the enlarged hole with dookie schmutz, smeared dookie schmutz on the knees and clamped thwarts-plus-knees back into the boat. Tomorrow the knees should be a permanent part of the boat, and tomorrow evening the dookie schmutz should be hard enough for me to re-drill the 8th hole.
I'm giving serious thought to putting up some bronze wood screws for this application. Steve is checking whether he can order them for me. Bronze should be tougher than brass.
Tomorrow I have to work at the clinic, and I have Folksingers Anonymous in the afternoon and a guest coming in the evening. Hopefully I can squeeze in a little boat work--if I paint the gunwales with epoxy *before* OVFF they can get half their curing time while I'm gone and can't work anyway.
I went to put them in the first thing this morning, and the very first one broke off halfway in.
To put this in context, I drove more than fifty of this exact same type of screw, into ash gunwales, when I made Patience. The first eight of them I had to back out again because I couldn't for the life of me get them to go all the way in (it turned out my combination bit didn't drill out the unthreaded part of the shaft deeply enough.) Some of them, the threads were like ruffles when I got them out--the strain had been so great the brass threads partially melted.
Not. One. Of. Them. Broke.
So I know what I'm doing with brass wood screws. Okay?
Not only did this POS cheap screw break, it broke deeply enough inside the wood that I couldn't get any kind of grip on it with my Leatherman.
I took the thwart to the hardware store, where I should have gone in the first place, and looked up my friend Steve there, who removed the broken screw for me, at the cost of drilling it out with a bigger drill bit, enlarging the hole. He also advised me to 1) drill out the deep part of the hole with a bit 1/64th inch larger than that part of the combination bit when working with hardwoods 2) use soap, not wax, on the threads of the screw and 3) drive a steel wood screw of the same size into the hole first (which I would have done if I'd had one.) He also said that all brass woodscrews were cheap Chinese crud now, so they aren't as sturdy as the ones I had when I worked on Patience.
I bought 8 of the hardware store's brass wood screws anyway, went to Lowes and returned their cheap POS screws (which I characterized politely as a "quality control problem"--and which had actually cost *more* than the hardware store screws (grrr.)) and came home, the entire morning gone.
After lunch I put in seven wood screws. None of them broke. I unclamped everything, took thwarts-plus-knees out, sanded knees, put 6 mil plastic between thwarts and knees (so as not to epoxy them together accidentally) and put all seven screws back in, filled up the enlarged hole with dookie schmutz, smeared dookie schmutz on the knees and clamped thwarts-plus-knees back into the boat. Tomorrow the knees should be a permanent part of the boat, and tomorrow evening the dookie schmutz should be hard enough for me to re-drill the 8th hole.
I'm giving serious thought to putting up some bronze wood screws for this application. Steve is checking whether he can order them for me. Bronze should be tougher than brass.
Tomorrow I have to work at the clinic, and I have Folksingers Anonymous in the afternoon and a guest coming in the evening. Hopefully I can squeeze in a little boat work--if I paint the gunwales with epoxy *before* OVFF they can get half their curing time while I'm gone and can't work anyway.
