Good Morning All

What do you use/make to match your mounting screws, lags, nuts and bolts to your forgings.
Even my basic J-Hooks deserves something better; better than to be mounted with a dry wall screw.

-tks grant

I have used hand forged nails many times. I little modification and trickery can turn a nail into a threaded nail which can be secured with a nut. If you can get to the back of what you are fastening onto, these "snails" (my name for them) work nice for a little extra security. I drill a round pilot hole just a tad smaller than the nail diameter, tap in the nail, and secure it with a nut. I have also reworked some modern bolt heads into the old style square head with a little worn look. If using new bolts, watch out for galvanized stuff. Also made some square nuts by slicing some square stock to the thickness I needed, drilled and tapped the threads plus a little light hammer work. Hope this gives you some ideas.

You can purchase "plain finish" (unplated) fasteners from Fastenal.com and reforge the heads. They also sell slot-headed screws, and square headed bolts and square nuts.

Try pyramid head screws at Blacksmiths Depot
Blacksmiths Depot |Pyramid Head - lag bolt (screw) Blk Oxide

For outdoor projects I have heated the heads of stainless screws and brushed them with brass to get a bronzed look that matches my metal. I like the oval heads best.

Another place is BlacksmithBolt .

They a wide variety of period fasteners for blacksmiths.

reforge hex lags to square or just touch up some modern square lags. when a more precise head is needed i'll forge down a known stock size with appropriate hammer marks and then drill and tap them. then i cut off a regular lag with a unthreaded shoulder and cut threads and put them together with a little Loktight.i do this so i'm not constantly retrieving my lag screw with vise grips when i try to unscrew my new fancy bolt.

unfinished lags are best for reforging if you can get them. no need to burn off the zinc coating if you don't have to. my local hardware supplier has a list from an outfit that carries mostly overstock bolts, your hardware provider may also. i can usually get a pretty good deal when i buy the whole lot, which varies greatly in size. i keep these bolts/lags on hand and dip into them as needed.

upset the end of square stock
cut down to where its square
drill and tap, insert stud with locktite

insert stud with upset head into the other half of an expansion bolt


alternately weld an upset head to an expansion bolt or lag bolt
drill a hole in the square stock,
plug weld through the stock to the top of the boltlag, then upset (carefully)

we did a lot of masonry mounting

course you can do it the other way round with a stud in the wall and an upset blind "nut" that's been drilled and tapped

Edited December 14, 200817 yr by Ice Czar

Thanks All for the help. -grant