Get lotsa hardware dirt cheap!

[Uncle Buck]

For those interested, I have bought literally hundreds of pounds of miscellaneous new hardware through the years for pennies on the dollar! The catch is, you really have no idea what sizes or kinds of nuts, bolts etc. you are buying. The way you do this is call or stop by a nut, bolt and screw company in your area, ask if they have containers of floor sweepings from the broken boxes of hardware for sale in bulk. My experience has been that I could purchase say 200-300 LBS for maybe $50.00 dollars or less. Usually the more you buy the cheaper it gets! What I have described is not your local hardware store, but rather large industrial suppliers. Usually these places will be found in the older run down areas in larger cities. Anyway look under fasteners in your yellow pages and see what is available in your area.

 

[Satatic]

Do you ever get stainless?

 

[Uncle Buck]

You never know what you are gonna get. Lotsa nuts, bolts, screws, both wood and sheetmetal, lag bolts, etc in both standard and metric. Occasionally you may get some snap rings, cotter pins, hardened allen type machine screws, yes some stainless and even some brass from time to time. As I said, you are at the mercy of what box of hardware broke and was swept off of the floor. The last time I bought some ( 8-10 yrs ago) I took the stuff and loaded 3-4 big coffee cans full and gave both my dad and bro in law 3-4 each. You can bet there will be some you will never use, however it is well worth checking out what your local supplier has in the back room. As I recall at that time I only spent $50.00 and left with more than 200lbs of hdw!

 

[JasonK]

I'm in Topeka, Where and who can I call?

 

[330Scott]

Good tip. Thanks a lot.

 

[Fast Orange]

With my luck,I could buy a 55 gal. drum of this stuff,buy $3000 worth of Lista cabinets,spent 6 months of weekends sorting it all out and still not have the one screw I need 1/2 hour after Home Cheapo closes.
For what hardware costs,you can spend $ 20 a week in the hardware aisle,for a month or two and have what you need and not have to do any sorting.
Believe me,your not going to find anything much bigger than 1/4-20 in those deals,and I'll gaurantee theres no grade 5 stuff in there either.

George

 

[Ed ke6bnl]

at my work place they where cleaning shop and they had a large 3ftx2ftx.5ft tray full off machinest used bolt, machine screws etc. I got them all in two 7 gallon buckets and we call it out MAGIC BUCKET because if we need a special american bolt we alway find it in there. Ed ke6bnl

 

[Uncle Buck]

Fast orange is wrong, I said I got this stuff in the industrial part of town, so yes there is some grade 8 and harder stuff to be found, the trick is, is the grade 8 in the pile what you need! Also, there is usually plenty of big hardware in these bucket buys, the only problem you may encounter is the stuff may be too big! To Jason K, I bought all this stuff at either KC nut bolt and screw in the fairfax district in KC Kansas or a hardware distributor located in Lee's Summit Mo. ( forgot name)when I used to live in the Kansas City Area. I do not know if KC nut and bolt is still in business though, it looked as though the building had been through a fire the last time I was over that way. Anyway good luck. Jason, you are welcome to come by and see my pile if you are so inclined. Herb

 

[Tx Firefighter]

I buy most of my hardware at scrap prices. There is a Lockheed aircraft factory here in town. They surplus thousands of pounds of brand new hardware all the time. At the scrap yard where I shop, I pay 1 dollar a pound.

I do weird old car stuff and the aircraft hardware fits the theme. I like safety wire and castellated lock nuts and such.

 

[Gregdoo]

I agree with hholmberg. I used to work at an industrial tractor place and there was always a 5 gallon pail or two of unsorted stuff that they never paid anyone to sort and it was always in the way. They would have given it to anyone willing to pay $20 or so and been happy to have it out of the way. The hardware was top quality USA made stuff, all grade 5 or 8. As stated, there was often larger stuff in the mix, but a lot of smaller items too. Maybe you could give all the larger stuff to a local farmer, and maybe they would let you hunt their land for a day or something.