screw sizes driving me crazy?

Kitchen Knife Forums

Help Support Kitchen Knife Forums:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

sudsy9977

Founding Member
Joined
Feb 28, 2011
Messages
866
Reaction score
30
ok so im not gonna even pretend to understand screw sizes.....long story short, I wanna mount my tv on the wall...I have everything except the screws...lol.....the screw I have I think is a M6 x 14 it is too big.....I have a machine screw that is 8-32x1 that you can sort of put in the hole but itdoesnt start to go in....im assuming the threads don't match up with what I have......I guess my question is what size machine screw would be similar to 8-32?....im not sure if I'm even correct in assuming thats what I need....im getting even more confused reading online.....it also is a short hole...I put a paper clip in the hole and its like maybe 12mm long....hope some can help me make sense of this.....ryan
 
M designation is so much easier to understand - the nominal circumference of the thread in millimeters. You can check it very easy with a digital caliper.
 
The problem is I don’t have a screw or calipers. I have a screw that doesn’t fit and a hole. Ryan
 
The problem is I don’t have a screw or calipers. I have a screw that doesn’t fit and a hole. Ryan

Take a piece of dowel, a chopstick or whatever you can find that is closest in diameter, just slightly too large to insert into hole. You can chuck an oversize dowel into a drill and sand to fine tune- taper the first 1/8" or so, wax or soap dowel for lubrication. Gently tap it into the hole a little past tapered end until threads will "bite" and you can screw it in for a good way. Unscrew carefully. Hold up to an inch or millimeter scale, count threads per cm or threads per inch, or just take your stick with the impression of threads and evidence of rough Dia. to a hardware store and compare to similar threads...
 
I don't know why we never fully switched to the metric system here in the US. It makes no sense to me. We have to have 2 sets of wrenches, sockets, drill bits, taps and dies, stocks of nuts and bolts, (and of course there's still there's always one size or thread pitch that you need and don't have).

It's not like the metric system is harder to understand, though I guess buying 2 of everything is good for the economy.
 
Think I got it figured out. We will see if it fits I guess thanks for the responses guys
 
#8 is close in size to M4 - M4 and M5 are both possibilities that are smaller than M6.
 
What Bill said, also the TVs all have the same size mounting screw holes “usually” but not always.
 
I think it’s m4 8mm. It’s the holes on the back for a tv mount. Now I gotta figure out what I need to screw this thing into my wall.
 
Besides thread differences, M4 has an ever so slightly smaller diameter than an 8. This corresponds size wise to your description, along with the high probability of it being made overseas that you are dealing in metric.
D.
 
DD9B679F-08B4-4250-B436-A55D9C99666F.png
This might help
DD9B679F-08B4-4250-B436-A55D9C99666F.png
 
I don't know why we never fully switched to the metric system here in the US. It makes no sense to me. We have to have 2 sets of wrenches, sockets, drill bits, taps and dies, stocks of nuts and bolts, (and of course there's still there's always one size or thread pitch that you need and don't have).
The attempt to switch a few decades ago did not go well. In fact, many federal gov't agencies were the last to give up trying -- and some still require projects to be designed in metric unless they receive an exemption. There is an issue with so much existing construction, machinery, etc. being in inch/ feet, so metric modules do not fit in very well. And manufacturing plants were tooled for inch/ feet products, and switching meant not being able to produce parts needed to properly repair the vast amount of existing building, machinery, etc. that require new parts for maintenance/ repair. Also, the general public was not really open to it. Even the simple switching to kph instead of mph, which wasn't hard to do since speedos could be printed with both scales and highway signs were changed to include kph, was more than most people cared to go through.

It is a lot more complex issue than simply 'switching over'.
 
Australia managed to do it, as did the UK. In the UK, there seem to be more remnants of the imperial system hanging around, though. In Australia, the imperial system is pretty much dead. Schools have been teaching metric for years, temperatures, distances, volumes, and speeds are metric, etc. There are a few hangers-on, such as plumbing fittings, which are still imperial, and petrol stations, which have air pressure gauges that show pounds per square inch.
 
Australia managed to do it, as did the UK. In the UK, there seem to be more remnants of the imperial system hanging around, though. In Australia, the imperial system is pretty much dead. Schools have been teaching metric for years, temperatures, distances, volumes, and speeds are metric, etc. There are a few hangers-on, such as plumbing fittings, which are still imperial, and petrol stations, which have air pressure gauges that show pounds per square inch.
The lss people you have, the easier it is to make a change like that. The US has the world's 3rd largest population.

United States[d] population - 329,533,584
United Kingdom[h] population - 66,435,600
Australia population - 25,661,223

Argue it however you want, but it was tried once and failed horribly -- and that attempt cost a lot. So we bite the bullet and do it because other countries do? If Germany jumped off a cliff, should the US? It is not going to happen any time soon, although the young generation may push it through at some point since many cannot do math, and making everything so you just have to move a decimal point will make their lives easier :D
 
I honestly don't know whether a smaller population makes it easier. On the face of it, I'd say "yes, there are fewer people in Australia, so they had it easier." But is this really true? (I honestly don't know.)

The US has a much larger population, so it's clearly a lot more work to implement such a change. But they also have a lot more people to do it with. Per capita, the cost might turn out to be about the same?

And, no, I don't expect the US to change any time soon either.
 
I remember the effort to try to switch years ago and the outcry and general resistance to it. But I still believe that if we had done it the cost to business in the long run would be less. Since we import and export so many products having two systems causes confusion and extra expense. Not saying it would be easy or cheap in the short term, but the metric system is a better system. People would adapt.

Wasn't there a space mission that failed because somebody used the wrong units?
 
I think it’s m4 8mm. It’s the holes on the back for a tv mount. Now I gotta figure out what I need to screw this thing into my wall.
What type of wall are you anchoring it to? If standard drywall over 2 by 4 wood studs I use a screw that is 1 3/4 inches in length. Code requires any electrical or plumbing pipes be at least 1 1/4 inches from the face of the wood so 1.25 plus .5 for the drywall. I use what is basically a drywall screw but with a thicker shaft. Deck screws fit this requirement for me. If I only have 2 inch screws I just add some washers.
TV's weigh so little now the large screws that come with the mounts I throw in the trash. They are crap metal anyway.
 
It’s in my office. Regular drywall walls. It doesn’t come with hardware for the mount to the wall though. It is going in the very corner of the wall and the tv is gonna be catty corner. I’m assuming there will be a stud there lol. You never know in my house though. Thanks for the info on length though. I didn’t know any of that
 

Latest posts

Back
Top