Posted by Sherman in Idaho [72.47.153.29] on Tuesday, November 04, 2014 at 20:46:01 :
I needed some 1/4-24 slotted set screws for the door knobs in my old building. Couldn't find them anywhere so decided to get a die and make my own. Taps and dies are usually available even for oddball screw sizes. I ended up finding both tap (to clean out the holes) and die cheap on ebay straight from China. In the picture it looked like a 1" round die. Turns out the OD is 20 mm -- a little over 3/4". Never seen such a thing -- English threads in a metric-sized die.
Not sure if I'm going to make an adapter sleeve for my smallest die stock, or buy another die elsewhere, making sure the OD is English. They'll be some expensive screws by the time I get them done. Other guys would just ram a 1/4-20 or 1/4-28 tap through the hole, put in a modern set-screw and call it good, but I've seen a lot of the wrong screws rammed in old doorknob holes and I want to do these right.
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