An Experiment in Frugality

I just saved $4.13! That's the cost of 30 ea. #6-32 x 3/4" screws at Home Depot. Of course, it took me two and a half hours to do it, so that comes out to $1.65 an hour. Makes McDonalds' wages look like the 1% by comparison.

When I wrote about my recycled 14-drawer cabinet from Radio Shack, I mentioned that I was going to use part of it to store hardware - screws, nuts, bolts, etc. I recently took stock of what I had on hand, and found a pretty motley collection. But of #6-32 machine screws, for some reason I had 70 screws of 1-1/2" length. No other lengths, just that one, which is actually sort of long for such a small screw.

I got the bright idea that I'd make several fixtures to hold the screws, to allow them to be shortened to a standard length.
I started with 3/4", and found an aluminum bar that was just over at 0.791". I milled it to a "scant" 3/4" in height (0.749), and then drilled, counterbored to half the depth, and tapped five holes to #6-32 to hold the screws. The counterbore was to reduce the amount of material to thread - I don't think my 6-32 tap would even tap a full 3/4". Here it is with the five screws started:

After tightening all the screws into the fixture, I could use my band saw to cut them close to flush:

Then, I put the fixture in the mill vise and milled the screws flush. 

By this time, I could see the time investment it would take to make multiple fixtures for multiple sizes, and decided that enough was enough. If you ever need to shorten a 6-32 screw to 3/4", I'm your guy. Otherwise, do what I'm going to do: buy the right size! I did shorten 30 of the 70 screws, so I have a decent stock of those two sizes.

I'm going to the Cabin Fever Expo on Jan 15-17 over in Lebanon, so I'll try to find some bulk packs of various sizes to fill up a drawer or two in that new cabinet.