My metric journey

When I remodeled my kitchen, I found some pulls I liked a lot at outwater.com. (See my earlier thread for pics on the remodel job.)

Unfortunately the pulls are European and the screws are metric. They had the breakaway sections on the screw, but the screw length I needed was between breakaway sections. Ever tried to buy a metric screw cutter? I spent a day going to every hardware/electrical supply store in a 15 mile radius with an astounding lack of success.

I spent another two days googling for a 4MM screw cutter. Googling “metric screw cutter” did not yield any usable results. I (finally) tried googling “electrical tools” and found the doodad I needed at http://www.mcmaster.com/ , page 720. Here’s what those lovely folks sent me:



The moral of the story is: don’t buy hardware that uses metric screws unless you have or have found a metric screw cutter.

FWIW, outwater.com has a very large selection of 'stuff' for most projects.

glad you found the right tool for the job and good hint on the hardware. I'm probably gonna be doing that later this year and it was something I hadn't considered

i had a very bad time last week with a ratchet! I needed a 5 but only could find every other size but that.

I wanted to highlight this websource in my thread OP because this company deserves exposure to all DUer's in the DIY world. Probably deserves its won threads.

I've been, amongst other things, an industrial MRO buyer....the McMaster-Carr catalog is a bible for the maintanence personnel in every industrial plant. They have the most incredible database of hardware/industrial products in one resource. There is a wealth of great information to mine in these pages.

I discovered them when I was in charge of the machine shop and facilities for a startup solar company in NJ. I now work for another solar(PV) company and they are still king.

A great website allows me to find zillions of things all in one place. One third of their 1500 page is redone every year. I can go there and find what I need.

I have gone to the Dayton NJ. site many times to pick things up. You should see the site if you can. Dozens of tractor trailers being filled with goods being shipped all over the nation.

If there is something you can't find in the catalog or website just call and they will get it for you. I have ordered everything from high temperature ceramic tubes to low temperature hose for liquid nitrogen. and you can order small or large quantities. If I owned a company I would want it to be as professional as the mcmaster carr company. They saved my ass so many times.