Hello

I posted the following in the carpentry forum, but thought it wouldn't hurt to post it here as well.

Apologies for taking up extra space on the board - but I'm at my wits end and the customer service people are next to useless.

cheers

I've bought the kids one of those wooden playframes with swings and a slide which I have to assemble myself. The problem is with the nuts and bolts that are supplied with it.

There are long (120mm) bolts with a smooth rounded head which goes through 2 pieces of wood, and when you try and tighten the nut at the other end, it gets so far then the whole bolt just slips round and round.

With some flatpack furniture I've had in the past, a long bolt that fits snugly to the wood (or countersunk) often has an allan key shaped hole in order for you to keep it steady. This doesn't, so I've got no way of keeping a grip on it to hold it in place whilst I tighten the nut.

As you can imagine, this renders the whole thing unusable - so before I phone them to get them to take the damn thing away, does anyone have any tips on how I can get round this ?

Many thanks.

use a hack saw to put a slot in the dome'd end and then use a large flatblade screwdriver to hold it...

Use some spring washers like these. http://www.service-champions.co.uk/inde ... Path=54_80 They will stop the slip.

DWD

somthing like a square washer but not at these prices
http://www.toolfastdirect.co.uk/cgi-bin ... 31D0220400

or swap with normal bolts and a spanner

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we are all ------------------still learning

They sound like coach bolts.

Coach bolts normally have a square on the inside, which bites into the wood to prevent it from turning.

What you can do is tighten the nut onto the bolt and then grab the piece of the bolt that sticks out with some mole grips and then tighten the nuts, or if there is enough thread sticking through you can tighten two nuts against each other and hold them with a spanner.


If you go down the molegrip route you might damage the threads, which will make it difficult to remove the nuts in the future.

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DIY | Donnas dream house

Thanks for the replies

They must be coach bolts as they do have a square on the inside - I'm guessing that the wood is too soft to stop it turning (which now makes me wonder about the quality of the climbing frame)

I'll try the spring washer as that seems like the quickest possible fix, failing that I reckon that the idea with the hacksaw is genius - I wouldn't have thought of that in a million years.

Thanks very much for all your help.

Right or wrong, What I did years back when replacing the wood on a bench was to push the bolts through, then tap the heads firmly with a hammer to ensure the square bites nicely before I try to turn them.
Worked fine for me, and the bench is still in use.

HTH
J