bolt cutters aren't much good for cutting bolts

[lowell holmes]

Sometimes, the thickness being clamped does not allow this. I want 1/4" of threads showing after the bolt up.

[John K Jordan]

Why not just buy the correct length bolts and skip the cutting step?

That's a good question! It may depend on what you are doing, how you work, the urgency, and how far you live from the perfect bolt store.

For me, I will often cut bolts and machine screws since I keep a big stock on hand but don't have one the right length for what I'm building or fixing. Cutting one is a quick and simple operation. Driving and shopping and finding exactly the right bolt is not.

Some other reasons I cut bolts and machine screws:

Fixing something at 10pm an night, need to use the equipment in the morning, and the only bolt I have is too long.
Making a stud threaded on both ends.
Welding a bolt head to something to make a very short stud.
Trimming excess to fit in a tight spot.
Reducing the length of a set screw to fit a special application. (I grind these shorter rather than cut)

JKJ

[Rich Engelhardt]

Thanks for that tip John.

& yes - it does run a lot more that the basic thread cutting kit I picked up at HF. That ran me about $10 on sale about 15 years ago. Since I've used it a total of three times, I think the cost was appropriate.

Re. The Dremel wheels....I found them too fragile for any real work - such as cutting off old toilet bolts. Any minor deflection of the spinning disk causes them to shatter - sometimes explosively. My wife was standing next to me & got hit in the forehead by a piece - that's what sold me on the idea of a cheap angle grinder.

Anyhow, I'll keep an eye out (bad choice of words! ) for a thread cleaner.

[John K Jordan]

...Re. The Dremel wheels....I found them too fragile for any real work - such as cutting off old toilet bolts. Any minor deflection of the spinning disk causes them to shatter - sometimes explosively. My wife was standing next to me & got hit in the forehead by a piece - that's what sold me on the idea of a cheap angle grinder.

If you are not aware, Dremel sells two types of the small abrasive cutoff wheels, one about twice as thick as the other. They also offer fiberglass-reinforced cutoff wheels that won't fly apart.

And yes, you can't flex the small wheels while spinning, but with a little care it's not a problem. Safety glasses, of course, for bystanders too.

I probably use the cutoff wheels more than other bits - keep one on one Dremel all the time for precision cutting and sharpening bandsaw blades. I use angle grinders for larger things.

I also used the little cutoff Dremel wheels a lot when I had a pile of motorcycles in the '70s. The engine casings and such were often put together with philips head bolts/machine screws which would strip easily. I used a little cutoff wheel to cut a straight slot in what was left of the head and go at it with a wide flat-bladed screwdriver bit in an hand-held impact driver. Worked every time. At that time aftermarket was selling replacement bolts with hex heads.

JKJ

[Rich Engelhardt]

Why is it that - the bad toilet bolts always seems to be the one next to a wall, where you can hardly see & you have to bend like a pretzel to get at? <----why Dremel wheels snap!
Yeah I've tried both and the fiberglass ones also. I'll still take the HF grinder any day over the Dremel.

[lowell holmes]

I have a hack saw and a bench grinder that will deal with this (and has).

[Roger Feeley]

Why not just buy the correct length bolts and skip the cutting step?

Steve,
For me, it's a matter of convenience. For 10-24 and below, I just keep a large quantity of long bolts on hand and cut them to size. It only takes a minute with my handy-dandy shear to cut a small bolt to the size I want. Going to the store to get one bolt is time-consuming and kind of annoying. That's what prompted me to start this thread in the first place. I would love that same convenience with 1/4" to 1/2" bolts. It just struck me that there ought to be someone out there willing to take my money.

Presently I do what pretty much everyone else does: Thread a nut onto the bolt, hacksaw it to length, grind the end flat, chamfer it a bit, remove the nut to chase the threads, and clean it up with a triangle file if needed. Since I'm sort of lazy, I keep a nice variety of lengths of larger bolts around.

[Steve Rozmiarek]

Steve,
For me, it's a matter of convenience. For 10-24 and below, I just keep a large quantity of long bolts on hand and cut them to size. It only takes a minute with my handy-dandy shear to cut a small bolt to the size I want. Going to the store to get one bolt is time-consuming and kind of annoying. That's what prompted me to start this thread in the first place. I would love that same convenience with 1/4" to 1/2" bolts. It just struck me that there ought to be someone out there willing to take my money.

Presently I do what pretty much everyone else does: Thread a nut onto the bolt, hacksaw it to length, grind the end flat, chamfer it a bit, remove the nut to chase the threads, and clean it up with a triangle file if needed. Since I'm sort of lazy, I keep a nice variety of lengths of larger bolts around.

Sure, I get it. I've been known to cut screws at times to. In my previous ag career I used tremendous piles of bolts. They are wear items on some machines, to the tune of 50# each time sweeps need replaced, nearly 1000#/year usually. This ended up making the need for a size I didn't have a constant issue. I went the large inventory system rather than make them fit route though. I had Fastenal stock a large bolt bin with a constant supply of all possible normal metric and SAE bolts in grade 5 and 8. This made for an impressive cabinet, and was surprisingly affordable. It also illustrated something quite well, that we used several sizes extensively, but that probably 80% of the bin never got used. To that end, if you wanted to do a scaled back inventory system you could probably get a surprisingly small assortment that covers 99% of your needs.

The main reason that I resist cutting bolts is that the corrosion proof plating on the bolt is compromised each time one is cut creating a rusty end quite quickly. I hate that, it looks amateurish in my opinion. Of course it's not a problem in all instances but pretty much all of what I cut bolts for.