Carriae bolts question

[iscariot]

I feel silly asking.  I'm going to home depot tomorrow and I need to get carriage bolts.  What ones should I get?  I think I missed it.

[drventure]

Kinda depends on what you're wanting to do with them, I'd guess.

Not trying to be a smartass, but seriously, you're going to have to be a tad more specific if you expect to get any real help.

[iscariot]

Sorry, in hindsight I should have.

I'm mounting two happ ultimate sticks under the control panel.  The panel is made of wood and is about 5/8 inches thick.

[brock.sampson]

Are your bolts going to be showing?  If you are trying to hide them I'd probably go with recessed t-nuts instead or your could mount inserts from the bottom of the panel.  I've also seen elevator bolts which are essentially flat head carraige bolts.

[drventure]

Ah. The best way to mount sticks like that is to pick up some "TNUTS" from the hardware store and some machine screws to go with them.

You drill a hole through the CP, then drill a larger hole just about 1/32" deep to countersink the tnuts, pound the tnut in, and then insert the screw from the bottom of the cp.

The tnut won't come out or wiggle loose and you can easily replace the stick from the bottom if need be.

Here's a tnut, if you've never seen them.

http://www.woodpeck.com/tnut.html

[iscariot]

i'd like them to show actually. Personal preference.

[brock.sampson]

If you are looking for black ones I know Bob Roberts carries those over at the realbobroberts.net and divemaster also carries those on the buy and sell section in this forum.  I have bought items from both and you can't go wrong with either one.  Your local hardware store should carry equivalent zinc or stainless carriage bolts if you are looking for silverish.  If you are using a plexi overlay I'm assuming you would have to cut a square hole in it somehow.  I don't have any bolts showing on my cp so not sure how you would pull that off.