There aught to be a law...

[steven c newman]

against screws this small..:mad:
337313
Added Brass corner plates to the 3 Plane Box today......and fought almost every one of the little suckers. Had an old scribe from a combo square, used it to at least make a small pilot hole. Threw a couple of the screws away. Phillips headed screws this small? Would have prefered slotted ones. They are even smaller than the hinge screws....Grrrrr. :mad:
337314
I used the larger ones for around the bottom of the case. Debating on handles.....maybe not? :confused:

Maybe the next time, I will just find some small brass nails, instead.

[Pat Barry]

Those little screws are. You did the pilot hole with the scribe. Thats good. DId you try putting a little soap on the threads? I have doe the soap trick a lot with little screws and it really improves the chance of getting the screw in without stripping the phillips head.

[steven c newman]

Just wiggled the scribe around a bit. These were too small for the soap trick. Looks like the screwdriver needed was a #0. Very small. For some reason, I was able to pick each "brass" screw up with a magnetic tipped screwdriver....

[Stew Denton]

Hi Steven,

One thing about the "Solid Brass" screws that are made by brass plating small steel screws is that at least the Phillips head slots don't strip out as quickly.

Stew

[Rollie Kelly]

Next time, try threading in the same sized solid steel sacrificial screw first. If you booger a screw head no big deal. I always lube wood screws with Minwax or Johnsons paste wax.
Rollie

[Andrew Gibson]

Lee Valley sells solid brass screws with slotted heads, I buy them regardless of included screws with the hardware.
I imagine Philip was a nice guy but I avoid his screws at all cost on furniture. Never mind the stripping issues, I think they are ugly compared to a properly clocked slotted screws.

[Jim Koepke]

Lee Valley sells solid brass screws with slotted heads, I buy them regardless of included screws with the hardware.
I imagine Philip was a nice guy but I avoid his screws at all cost on furniture. Never mind the stripping issues, I think they are ugly compared to a properly clocked slotted screws.

+1 on this.


Next time, try threading in the same sized solid steel sacrificial screw first.

This is where a set of gimlets are handy.

jtk

[Andrew Pitonyak]

The screws hold better than the nails.... just saying.... I have had to replace a few nails with screws. Some have held. I feel your pain! The last brass screw I installed was yesterday morning.... and it was a #8 3/4" long. Now that one was EASY! :D

[Jim Koepke]

The screws hold better than the nails

When I want nails to hold real good, they are placed in a vise and then a cold chisel is used to give them a few barbs. These are always used very carefully since they will make a mess if they have to be pulled.

jtk

[Bill White]

NO soap on a screw!!! The alkaline composition is not friendly to metal. I use toilet bowl wax or canning wax. No issue at all.
Just the way I do it, and I'm also in the camp of common screws for classic furniture. Phillips and Torx just don't look right for the period or style.
Bill

[Patrick Chase]

NO soap on a screw!!! The alkaline composition is not friendly to metal. I use toilet bowl wax or canning wax. No issue at all.
Just the way I do it, and I'm also in the camp of common screws for classic furniture. Phillips and Torx just don't look right for the period or style.
Bill

You know that the white lithium in lithium grease is a soap, right?

Soaps are mostly salts, and aren't universally alkaline. It depends on the specifics of composition and manufacturing process. I wouldn't recommend using a "hand-made" lye-based soap on screws, though :-).

[Bill Houghton]

DId you try putting a little soap on the threads?
Traditional soaps contained lye, and could be corrosive over time - not being sure about modern soaps, I prefer wax. I picked up a (new) wax ring that's used for the toilet seal at a yard sale. This is a soft wax, not sure of the composition, and is just about perfect.

[Pat Barry]

I use Dove soap because that's what wifey buys. Sometimes she asks about the grooves in the soap. I tell her that her diamond must be doing that. Shhhhh

I'd like to see the corrosion test data for screws vs metallurgy vs soap. I just doubt this is any issue whatsoever

[george wilson]

I just keep a scroungy old piece of beeswax candle on the bench to lubricate screws.

In the 18th. C.,they used IRON screws on brass hinges. They only had cast brass at the time,and did not trust the strength. Some Dutch gunsmith figured out a way to make brass gun barrels stronger. He formed a thick sheet of cast brass around a mandrel. Then,he brazed the lap joint and proceeded to hammer the brass down all around. He was making harder brass just as we have today(half hard is most commonly available). You can see a blown up brass barreled pistol of George Washington's at Mt. Vernon.
They used brass on guns intended for sea going use,or for those who wanted better corrosion resistance.

But,back to the topic: When I first came to the Museum in 1970,I thought the use of iron screws looked strange,and unattractive,till I found out what the deal was.

If you want to be authentic,get some standard flat head PLATED steel screws. Put them in a cup and pour in some MURIATIC(brick) acid. When the fizzing stops,the plating will be all gone. Takes several seconds. What I do to KILL the acid(muriatic is the devil to completely KILL),I put the screws on my brazing table- a few bricks will do,and carefully heat them to a SPRING BLUE. DON'T overheat. They will go to a gray color if you do.

Spring blue iron screws were used on the finest boxes' hinges. They were considered very elegant. And,they still ARE!!.

[Patrick Chase]

I use Dove soap because that's what wifey buys. Sometimes she asks about the grooves in the soap. I tell her that her diamond must be doing that. Shhhhh

I'd like to see the corrosion test data for screws vs metallurgy vs soap. I just doubt this is any issue whatsoever

Dove is close to neutral (they advertise it as "pH balanced" IIRC). No problem.

You know that there are these things called "search engines" and that they can find SMC posts, right? I doubt very much that SWMBO is fooled. More likely just saving that minor offense for later use... :-)

EDIT: Not buffered, just near-neutral.

[Tom M King]

I've used Bronze screws more than a few times. I can't remember when I bought any brass screws that I liked, and boat builder suppliers still sell Bronze screws with slotted heads. They aren't an exact match for brass hardware, but not bad after some years of patina anyway.

George, I really appreciate your how-to on de-plating steel screws, and will get some use out of it. I had some old plain steel wood screws out of my Grandfather's store, but not all the sizes that I run into.

[steven c newman]

These little screws were very tiny. Hard to hold onto. Normal practice is the use the same candle I apply on the soles of my planes. Just a cheap parrafin candle. The scribe from the combo square, tapped it into the wood a bit, and a few wiggles to loosen it up. It also made a coone like hole.

Lumber costs was around $8
Hardware was about $12

Just a simple pine box to house three planes. I can set the box in the Tool Chest #2. There is a box for the bits I made earlier, and I can stack both the three plane box , and the Stanley 45 box, all in one corner of the chest.

[Stew Denton]

Hi All,

A comment on soap for lubing screws. There is not enough lye left in modern hand soap to be very corrosive at all, only traces are left. If much lye left in the soap, it would attack your skin and be very dangerous for your eyes. Thus, the bar soap manufacturers work very hard to make sure they wash all of the lye out of the soap, except for trace amounts which are not very hazardous.

I do prefer wax, but have used soap when I didn't have wax very handy. Modern bar soaps are mostly slightly caustic but only very mildly so. Caustics aren't generally considered very corrosive anyway, it's the acids that are corrosive.

Where you generally think about soaps being a problem is where they help keep the metal wet. The water isn't really corrosive either, but the water dissolves oxygen from the air, which is then in intimate contact with the steel, and it is the oxygen from the air in intimate contact with the steel that actually corrodes the steel. It isn't really the water or the soap.

All that said, if a person is still concerned about soap and corrosion, but still likes the way soap works, then he can use pH balanced soap, like Dove, as was mentioned above.

Stew

[Patrick Chase]

A comment on soap for lubing screws. There is not enough lye left in modern hand soap to be very corrosive at all, only traces are left. If much lye left in the soap, it would attack your skin and be very dangerous for your eyes. Thus, the bar soap manufacturers work very hard to make sure they wash all of the lye out of the soap, except for trace amounts which are not very hazardous.

There is one big exception: The hand-made, vegan (not!), fair-trade, sustainably-produced, all-natural etc etc soaps that some people insist on using.

I agree that any name-brand bar soap is going to be fine. Classic Ivory was about as caustic as those come at a Ph of 9 or so, and even that should be OK.

EDIT: Changed to reflect Ivory's reformulation

[george wilson]

I use beeswax because it sticks better in the screws' threads. Paraffin is o.k.,and I have used it many,many times,but it is so "slippery" about staying in the threads that I now just use a stump of a beeswax candle. I've never used soap. Just always preferred wax.

[Stew Denton]

Hi George,

Agreed, when I worked on the crab apple limbs a friend gave me, to seal the ends so that the wood would dry usably without splitting, I melted and mixed bees wax half and half, roughly, with canning wax, for the reason you list, the bees wax is sticky, is somewhat flexible and less brittle in cold weather, and the paraffin does not have either of those desirable characteristics. The reason for mixing it with the less desirable paraffin canning wax, was to extend the bees wax a bit.

In cold weather the paraffin is especially a problem, as it is so brittle you can hardly get it to soften enough to stick in the threads of the screw. I now have a good supply of bees wax, and it is much to be preferred, in my view, to the paraffin wax or to soap.

Stew