What is this type of bolt called?

A bolt like that is sometimes called a "T-bolt" or a "T bolt stud" or "T-slot bolt" (i.e., the head is intended to slide in a "T" groove) -- but that's a very small one with a rather thin head (and metric ) -- is it off a piece of furniture?

http://www.mcmaster.com/#tooling-component-t-slot-bolts/=ngqhql

 

Well, for that application (clamping a plastic structure), it makes perfect sense (just like on wood furniture) -- i.e., it's not clamping a huge load, so the head doesn't need to be super robust, and it needs to be large to spread the load over a big area. Good luck with the search, but, my guess, is that it may not be an easy one (unless you buy 10,000 ) -- but you might really try searching specialty furniture fastener sites, too.

 

Have you tried carriage bolts?

 

Who was it...... Fastenal, who was invented in the late 60's by a guy that wanted to stock EVERY type of nut and bolt in existence?
Most large cities have a couple of places that specialize in nothing but nuts, bolts and screws.

http://www.fastenal.com/web/products/fasteners/_/Navigation?r=~|categoryl1:"600000%20Fasteners"|~%20~|categoryl2:"600001%20Bolts"|~

Call people, you may not see it on a website but they can probably find it if it is made.

 

For your application, consider something like this:

MSM1B1515M412 - Veck bonding fasteners

 

your difficulty in obtaining it-slooted blind bolts-is that the methodology is largely obsolete, and no longer used due to cost of manufacturee, thus, availability is near impossible.
No application, no market, none made....thus supplies exhaust,
...and specialized short run machine cnc shop runs are the only solution.

Cars are not made this way anymore, its all bayonet plastic insterts made for, initial install, and perhaps, and I stress: perhaps, once reused.... before platics break.
its ugly out there...

We had to buy and learn to use an Okuma CNC lathe and a Fadal cnc mill to deal with the ever dwindling availability of 50+ year old fasteners, etc!
good luck

 

Here you go.....


http://www.mcmaster.com/#t-slot-bolts/=ngru4l

 

Pity MC only goes to 6 mm. Maybe rethread the M6 to an M4 as a rework?

Bill

 

Probably have to CNC some bar stock.

Last year I had 10-sniffer manifold tube nuts made from SS. About $250 IIRC and I have extra material and a program. Once set up, it's really just material costs.

Maybe add some value by specifying a superior material or sliding surface finish.

I assume you checked all the usual suspects for used examples?

 

Contact these guys.

Metric Multistandard Components Corp.

They promise that they can find anything in nuts and bolts.

I have used them a couple times, found them to be quite friendly and helpful.

D

 

here's a shot
T-Nuts, T-Bolts, T-Blocks - T-Nuts, T-Bolts, T-Blocks

may not be a square head but they do have the M4 size.

 

I think if I were going to have some made, I would start with a standard hex-head cap screw for the stock piece, of the correct thread size / pitch and length of course, and mill the head down (assuming that there is enough material available) to match the desired shape ---- I think that would be the cheapest way to make exactly what you need (assuming you can't find any off the shelf).

Even for a quantity of (50), a low-end machine shop should be able to do this for maybe $75, or so.

 

I'll share what my machine shops say about machining on fasteners, PITA! I needed some needle valves made and figured it may be easier to start with brass machine screws and turn them down, nope was told it was faster and easier just to single point the thread and point. the heads on bolts are forged so they don't exactly have a uniform shape and size.

given that it'd probably be easier to have them machined from square stock.

 

Don't spend any money yet.. I need the dimentions of the square part and you said 4MM? I have a easy and fast solution. It is 12 AM so I will do it in the morning.

 

The alarm siren in my 360 is held in place by bolts exactly like this. True it's not a new car, but it isn't all that old.

Unfortunately I don't remember the size, but I'm pretty sure they're significantly larger than what the OP is looking for.

 

Last resort might be a square nut and a short stud with loctite or spot welded.

5 mm x 8 Vintage Reproduction Stainless Square Nut | eBay

I did find a source on the internet from china, but the minimum order is 10k pieces.

Flat Head Stainless Steel 5mm Bolt - Buy 5mm Bolt,Bolt,Bolt Nut Product on Alibaba.com

Good luck,

Jerry
DRG

 

Rob, what is your target acquisition cost for this fastener? It is fairly simple to machine, but much more expensive than finding a supplier who already carries it.

Our company doesn't do outside job shop work, but we have all the CNC machines that could make these types of fasteners. If you decide to go the route of making a small batch run, here's what you are looking for when you interview machine shops:

1) The ideal shop to make this part has a CNC Swiss lathe with live tooling. A swiss style lathe is a twin-spindle lathe that automatically feeds ROUND (not square) bar stock to the primary spindle to machine the first half of the part, then cuts it off and hands it to the second spindle to machine the back half of the part. The benefit to using a swiss machine is that the work is all done in 1 setup. If we were going to make this part, we would run the job on one of our CNC swiss lathes. OP1 would either single point machine or whirl the threads, leaving an oversized round head to be milled into the square shape on OP2.

Rough guess - using a swiss lathe it would take 1.5-2.0 minutes per part to machine it and the manufacturing cost would be somewhere around $1.50 each with Zinc plating. However, the real killer is writing the CNC program. It's a couple of hours of programming and unfortunately that cost gets amortized over your very small lot size.

2) Alternately the part can be made like SMG2 described, albeit with round stock on 2 separate machines. OP1 would start with round stock loaded into a lathe to cut the threads and then cut off the part. OP2 would be cutting the square head on a vertical mill.

Good luck with the project! I deal with these kinds of headaches every day as we attempt to reverse engineer various specialized OEM components.

 

You may want to look at body moulding clips and steal the bolt out of them. Some are quite cheap and probably have the bolt you are looking for. I have attached a pic of one that has everything dimension wise, but full threads and the correct thread pitch. This one is made for a self thread cutting nyloc nut. This came out of a clip that is off a Porsche 964 lower rocker panel. I also remember the rolls royce of the 50's era using this on the trim. The thread is more than likely British standard and more expensive. I forget the name of the company as it has been so many years since I worked in the auto trades, but there is a company who makes and has a large cataloge of aftermarket body panel clips. They used to have pictures and descriptions. Perhaps you could hang out at a local body shop-probably import since it is metric you are looking for and go thru their bucket of extra bolts and find what you are looking for. I am sure the guy working there would be able to tell you what they are used on and where you could order more.
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