Is there any place to get BA Bolts / Screws in US?

[goldstar31]

Of course there is the possibility of using more freely available( and therefore cheaper ) uses for the various metric fasteners. I have the conversion chart and perhaps more pertinently grown somewhat weary of always mentioning it.
Britain is a Metric country- if you will forgive buying motor fuel in litres and quoting consumption in miles per gallon. I have, and am hoping to buy an imperial lathe but using a lot of cheap and sometimes nasty metric stuff.

And I would add that I have drawers full of BA( a metric derivation), 40 and 32 TPI screwing tackle. as well as Whitworth Fine and Whitworth Coarse stuff. Indeed, I also have 'American' stuff whatever that means.

As for transport of goods, the British Post Office has put up its prices for envelopes whilst 'certain' large parcel firms are actually German.

As Hopper wisely says ---Go Figure

 

[nealeb]

For model engineering purposes, these people make small-head metric bolts in small sizes (in Germany).

 

[tghsmith]

the price differences in taps may carbon vs HSS,,https://www.tracytools.com/ these folks handle both,, great prices, fast service..

 

[Rocketrob]

Thank you for this thread - OP and contributors! I recently took a front housing off of a 1948 Frog 100 MK II compression ignition engine and sheared two BA 10? cheeseheads.

 

[Jasonb]

Of course there is the possibility of using more freely available( and therefore cheaper ) uses for the various metric fasteners. I have the conversion chart and perhaps more pertinently grown somewhat weary of always mentioning it.

Problem is freely available commercial metric fasteners have heads that look even worse than BA being flat and double chamfer well that's if you can call the forged heads and nuts chamfered and look totally out of place on any half decent model.

Decent small hex metric fasteners are available which have taller heads and are fully machined but you pay for them just as you do BA

 

[wazrus]

Yes, the hex bolt/setscrew heads are sometimes not quite what you'd like, but I found Conrad in Europe's brass hex bolt heads to be quite good. The Chinese nuts I spoke of though, have been good and even the nylock variety aren't oversize. Then, you can always make your own and if it's a critical application, this I do. Again, the 'but': sourcing small hex bar can be an issue and again, HK to the rescue. Supplies were again offered in whatever quantity required and I have bundles of 3mm and 4mm A/F in brass. Making weeny little bolts is pretty time consuming, but I often simply plough into, say, 3mm brass hex stock directly with a 2mm die held in a tailstock die holder, without machining the whole body to accurate size. Of course, that's in brass, which machines like cheese. It may be a problem in some applications, but the Chinese screws etc are usually stainless steel - probably 304 - and as a result, tensile strength-wise, are much better than brass. You don't want to rip the head off a tiny brass setscrew in a blind hole! I could stand corrected, but a 'standard' (de facto) for bolt heads was that they be the same 'height' as the bolt diameter, i.e., when drawn, the hex flat was a square, in elevation. Very fine pitch threading tackle I've found, again, to be quite readily available and I have a suite of 0.5mm pitch taps and dies, sized from 3mm to 16mm. These are a quite viable replacement for many of the Model Engineer series.

 

[swissfella]

Re: BA screws

Hex head size (across flats) is 1.75 times the major diameter. Hex head height appears to be fractionally over 5/8 of the major diameter for standard bolts.

 

[Roskrow]

I suggest that you contact :- GWR-fasteners.co.uk

I have used them for many years and have always foujnd them most helpful.

Tracy Tools are indeed a great company, but as far as I am aware they only sell tools. If I need anythin in the tool field I always go to them.

In both cases I think the postal cost is realistic.
Best of luck
Malcolm

 

[comstock-friend]

I'm pretty well fixed on converting the balance of my Stuart Models to American ANSI machine screws for the following reasons:

1) Sizes are almost identical to the specified BA screw sizes:

2BA is 0.185" dia x 31.4 tpi, an ANSI #10-32 is 0.190" dia x 32 tpi;
5BA is 0.126" dia x 43 tpi, ANSI #5-40 (or 48) is 0.125" dia x 40 tpi course or 48 tpi fine;
7BA is 0.0984" dia x 52.9 tpi, while ANSI #3-48 (or 56) is 0.099" dia x either 48 tpi course or 56 tpi fine.

(2BA, 5BA and 7BA are the most common sizes used by Stuart (at least the 10, 4 engines, the Beam engine, etc.)

2) ANSI threads are the now universal 60 degrees (as are metric threads), not BA's 47-1/2 degrees.

3) All the BA taps and dies in my accumulation are carbon steel (and what appears to be commercially available), while my ANSI taps and dies are HSS. Additionally, the BA taps are all hand taps, while the ANSI are readily available in spiral, roll form, etc. (and I have a CNC mill that can take advantage of the machine taps for power tapping). And yes, I have tapped hundreds of holes #3-48 in steel on a HAAS VF3 mill at 2500 rpm. If you haven't seen it, you wouldn't believe it!

4) As mentioned above, we are looking for fasteners that look good on MODELS. While the Stuart furnished hardware looks OK, I don't think they look as good as the commercially available model engineering hardware available, such as through American Model Engineering Supply ( http://www.americanmodeleng.com/id41.html )

Of course, my perspective is from the USA, others' mileage may vary...

John