Alan ashore
Well-Known Member
Plastic Screws
2 years ago I made a demountable scrubbing grid on my tidal slipway. Suitable bits of wood secured to the concrete by lengths of studding and "drop-in anchors". Worked fine, and after removing the blocks I had the bright idea that putting plastic mushroom head screws into the anchors would keep the anchors easily reusable for next time, and the surface looking tidy, and that the plastic screws would come out with no problem.
Well, next time was last weekend and the most of the ****dy things wouldn't come out. I resorted to melting/burning them out with a small blowlamp, then running a tap into the threads. This didn't actually take all that long, but lets say it felt like an inelegant solution.
What does he mean by plastic?, I hear you say. Ah, yes they were nylon, and yes everybody knows that nylon swells through water absorption. That, which didn't occur to me at the time, might have been the problem.
Of course the minimum quantity I could source of the screws was quite a few, and I have plenty left.
I feel that Kipling's burnt Fool's bandaged finger is about to go wabbling back to the Fire, but I might try greasing them this time. (To be quite honest I might have done that last time, but don't recall)
This isn't exactly the biggest problem in my or anyone else's world, but I'd be interested in any comments.
A.
2 years ago I made a demountable scrubbing grid on my tidal slipway. Suitable bits of wood secured to the concrete by lengths of studding and "drop-in anchors". Worked fine, and after removing the blocks I had the bright idea that putting plastic mushroom head screws into the anchors would keep the anchors easily reusable for next time, and the surface looking tidy, and that the plastic screws would come out with no problem.
Well, next time was last weekend and the most of the ****dy things wouldn't come out. I resorted to melting/burning them out with a small blowlamp, then running a tap into the threads. This didn't actually take all that long, but lets say it felt like an inelegant solution.
What does he mean by plastic?, I hear you say. Ah, yes they were nylon, and yes everybody knows that nylon swells through water absorption. That, which didn't occur to me at the time, might have been the problem.
Of course the minimum quantity I could source of the screws was quite a few, and I have plenty left.
I feel that Kipling's burnt Fool's bandaged finger is about to go wabbling back to the Fire, but I might try greasing them this time. (To be quite honest I might have done that last time, but don't recall)
This isn't exactly the biggest problem in my or anyone else's world, but I'd be interested in any comments.
A.
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