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Tightening carriage bolts?

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BerwynIrish:

I'm new to woodworking or any kind of construction and I'm can't figure out how these carriage bolts are supposed to work just by looking at them. I'm using them to attatch my monitor shelf to the inside of the cabinet, as recommended by many of the examples I've seen. First, you obviously pre-drill a hole large enough for the bolt to slip through, right? There's a hex neck on these bolts, so I assume you're supposed to insert the bolt into the hole up to the neck, but leave the neck exposed so you can grab it with a wrench for tightening purposes. But that would mean the end result is that the head *and* the neck are sticking out of the hole when you're finished tightening. That can't be right, because I'm sure it would look pretty crappy. What am I not understanding?

M3talhead:

Carriage bolts usually have a hex or square neck just under the "dome" to give it  something to grip onto when fit into a square hole and tightened. You have a few options when using carriage bolts to mount hardware to a wood surface:

1) Buy a specially made bit for drilling square holes
2) Use a drillbit slightly larger than the diameter of the bolt shaft and crank down on the nut
3) Use a countersunk drillbit
4) Get a chisel and make your "square hole"



Rocky:

Carriage bolts were designed to be used on metal. The head sits in the square hole and can be tightened from the back without holding the front. Also, for arcade games, it's a security thing. No one can loosen them from the top of the CP.

I use them on my wooden panels and they work fine. Just make sure that they have a square hole to sit in and it works pretty much the same as metal.

Good luck,
Rocky


BerwynIrish:

Thanks guys.

thebrownshow:

Speaking of carriage bolts, anyone know where to get black ones for the top of a metal control panel?  I've got some stainless ones that look like crap against my black CPO.

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